Aluminum Triformate Instructions

Making the Mordant Bucket

Use a non-reactive container — a food service bucket marked with liters works best. A 10 liter container holds several 50 gram skeins. Get one with a tight fitting lid and keep it as clean as you can. Make sure there's enough room so your fibers can float freely in the mordant.

• 1 liter = 33.8 fl. oz.
• A 10 liter bucket yields about 4 pounds of fiber

Calculating the Amount

Use a 2% solution: 20 grams of mordant per liter of water. Use until you start to see a color change on your fibers — that's your signal it needs to be recharged. How often you recharge will depend on your usage. Try to keep the liquid at 10 liters.

10 Liter Recipe

1. Dissolve 200 grams of Aluminum Triformate in one liter of hot water.
2. Add 9 liters of room temperature water to your mordant bucket.
3. Add the dissolved Aluminum Triformate to the bucket and stir very well.
4. Add fiber and press out any air bubbles.

Soak times: An overnight soak gives the best results — 1 day seems to hit maximum absorption. A 3 hour soak will give lighter results.

*When introducing fabric to the bucket, you want absorbent fibers. If it's floating, consider scouring the fibers first to help with absorption. Pre-wetting is optional but either way works fine.

Getting Ready to Dye

1. Remove fibers from the mordant bucket. Squeeze and wring them, letting the mordant water fall back into the bucket.
2. Rinse the fibers lightly before dyeing — skipping the rinse can shift your color results (see Notes below).
3. Dye as usual.
4. After dyeing, remove fibers, let them cool, then rinse with same-temperature water. They tend to rinse out pretty clear quickly.
5. Air dry away from direct sunlight.

Care & Disposal

Mordant liquid may become discolored, murky, or cloudy over time — you can still use it but it may be a sign it's time to replace it.

Dispose in a municipal sewage system only. Do not pour into waterways, rivers, storm drains, or septic tanks. Alum is hard on aquatic life — keep it out of rivers, ponds, and the water table.

Notes

• Rinsing vs. not rinsing: Gently rinsing the mordant yields darker, more even color. The mordant is acidic (around pH 4), which can shift pH-sensitive dyes. Rinsing brings it up to around pH 7. Example: madder went very orange with no rinse; with a rinse it went more red.
• Soak time matters: Overnight room temp soaks produce darker shades. 3 hour soaks give softer, lighter colors. After recharging (1 liter water + 20g Aluminum Triformate), overnight soaks produced very dark shades.
• Wool really loves this mordant.
• Silk can be left in the mordant bath for days.
• Cotton and wool mixed fibers can be mordanted in the same bath.
• Fiber can be used wet or dry after mordanting.
• Store bucket at room temperature.
• Works as a stand-alone mordant — no need to add calcium carbonate, tannic acid, or cream of tartar unless desired.
• Can also be used as a substitute for an aluminum acetate process, but it's not required.
• Yields very bright, brilliant colors — 5% madder extract came out very strong.
• All mordants are somewhat acidic, so using a calcium modifier is worth keeping in mind.