Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mungo Park on August 7, 2010 at 1:16pm

For me, at least 3 days before it gets good, temp dependent I think, but I would not heat it above room temp.
I keep the lid on the jar just so the Ph does not change to much.
Cheers Ron.

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Permalink Reply by Dave Breault on August 7, 2010 at 1:19pm

I tried a 5 minute soak and kept stirring it up and got excelent results.

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Permalink Reply by Mark on August 8, 2010 at 8:08am

I'm still left wondering why people seem to think they need to mess around with complicated brews based on acid and wire wool or nails. Using iron sulphate dissolved in water gives you the same ebonising reaction without all the messy and noxious stuff. It seems to me that wire wool or nails introduce a lot of muck into the process that doesn't do anything useful but does make your timber dirty. Also I figure dissolving a powdered salt into water should facilitate a degree of accuracy and consistency whereas with wire wool or nails dissolved into acid the results seem to be variable. But I guess maybe it's more fun if it feels like you're brewing up some evil secret recipe...

The stuff here that interests me is the starkly different effects that seem to occur with different timber - presumably due to significant differences in tannin content between timber species. Steve Spencer's results with birch sound similar to the effect I observed on pine (it went slightly greenish rather than being "ebonised"). I've never encountered Sumac as a timber so I don't know what to think about that one.

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Permalink Reply by Spencer on August 8, 2010 at 12:03pm

I wouldn't classify dumping a handful of rusty metal into a jar half-full of vinegar complicated or noxious. The stuff you don't want settles to the bottom and you decant the good stuff off. It's my educated guess that the reason steel wool is giving people widely varying results is that steel wool is used because it generally rusts quickly. The key here being generally. If it's not pre-rusted and/or it has been treated to resist rust, it'll be giving less than fantastic results. Rusty iron that can get into solution is the key. Entropy has lent me numerous sources of it. And making barbecue sauces from scratch keeps the vinegar in my cupboard.

I'm glad to hear it works with the greening effect on pine - that's what I'll be using it for next. I'm making a battery powered amp out of well-worn wood that is now fresh looking where it has been cut. That will either be torched, ebonized, or likely both. A very ghetto and rustic looking burst, if it works correctly. Sumac is generally a junk tree but if you look up pictures of the wood it's very yellow and exotic looking. I saw that some were cut along the sides of the road (as they often are) and snagged them instead of letting them rot down. They're small enough to rip down to lumber on a table saw - I recommend checking it out if you get a chance. While you're at it, save some bark for a free high-tannin tea to increase ebonizing reactions in woods with low content. And the red furry berries make a cool lemonade-tasting tea. That's way too many random sumac facts for one post and I apologize.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Harrison on August 8, 2010 at 1:11pm

Home brew is fun stuff to play with and it fits into the depression era idea of the home made cbg .

C.F.Martin guitar company uses ebony finger boards and sometimes the natural ebony has very wide light colored streaks . So they use a commercial dye to touch up the offending areas. I have used the same dye on all types of wood and it is black as can be, every time. The Harmony guitar company used this dye to make their maple fingerboards and tailpieces look like ebony. I have also used black Ritz dye that worked well.

Cheers
Bob :)

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Permalink Reply by Mungo Park on August 8, 2010 at 2:04pm

Yes home brew, simple ( I have the stuff laying around)and I like the effect, it is not my idea I just thought it went well with the oak fret boards I have been making. I have used it on Box Elder burl, which it works quite well on to bring out the grain, gives a brown color. Somebody mentioned gunsmiths of old used it.
It has been consistent for me up until this one, but it is part of the home built one of a kind.
I kinda like the home brew thing, part of making things for fun.
Anyways I am glad the thread has some life and conflict to make it interesting in its self.
Cheers Ron.

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Permalink Reply by Mark on August 9, 2010 at 7:05am

I guess rusty metal and vinegar is pretty harmless - the noxious description was more in reference to a couple of other variations people have suggested. And if you have large quantities of wire wool and vinegar to hand then it's fair enough to use that. But I also think iron sulphate is an equally down-to-earth or "home brew" method and I think it offers potential advantages in terms of consistency of results.

I think a lot of the variation with the rusty-iron-in-acid method is down to the difficulty in knowing exactly how much iron oxide you're putting in. The amount of available iron oxide (and the rate at which it will be dissolved) is going to be dependent on the surface area of the material to hand. For example, I think wire wool works better than nails because a given weight of wire wool will have a much greater surface area than an equal weight of nails. But there's variation between different grades of wire wool - the finer it is, the greater its surface area per unit weight. Then on top of that you have variation in the degree of rusting. In short, there's a sort of unavoidable randomness inherent in the process (even if you're carefully following a "recipe").

If you have your iron in the form of a nicely soluble powdered salt that you can weigh out accurately then you ought to be able to develop much more consistent results.


Steve Spencer said:

I wouldn't classify dumping a handful of rusty metal into a jar half-full of vinegar complicated or noxious. The stuff you don't want settles to the bottom and you decant the good stuff off. It's my educated guess that the reason steel wool is giving people widely varying results is that steel wool is used because it generally rusts quickly. The key here being generally. If it's not pre-rusted and/or it has been treated to resist rust, it'll be giving less than fantastic results. Rusty iron that can get into solution is the key. Entropy has lent me numerous sources of it. And making barbecue sauces from scratch keeps the vinegar in my cupboard.

I'm glad to hear it works with the greening effect on pine - that's what I'll be using it for next. I'm making a battery powered amp out of well-worn wood that is now fresh looking where it has been cut. That will either be torched, ebonized, or likely both. A very ghetto and rustic looking burst, if it works correctly. Sumac is generally a junk tree but if you look up pictures of the wood it's very yellow and exotic looking. I saw that some were cut along the sides of the road (as they often are) and snagged them instead of letting them rot down. They're small enough to rip down to lumber on a table saw - I recommend checking it out if you get a chance. While you're at it, save some bark for a free high-tannin tea to increase ebonizing reactions in woods with low content. And the red furry berries make a cool lemonade-tasting tea. That's way too many random sumac facts for one post and I apologize.

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Permalink Reply by colin mcgrath on August 10, 2010 at 4:55am

my question is what type of vinegar is used? My guess would be one with highest % of acidity? this is something i would like to try. I have clear, goldish and dark vinegar, plus many types of steel wool.

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Permalink Reply by Spencer on August 12, 2010 at 3:59am

I used white vinegar but I've heard of others using apple cider vinegar. If you want to hunt down acetic acid content stats of the different types you could do so, but I'd just dump some already rusting metal into white vinegar because I know it works firsthand. As mentioned before, steel wool is only used for the amount of surface area and thus how quickly you can get it to rust. I'd recommend finding some already rusting iron of any sort instead.

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Permalink Reply by colin mcgrath on August 12, 2010 at 7:00am

thank you, I was thinking white was the way to go, but wasn't sure if the color of the apple cider version had anything to do with the actual staining. And I did not want to spend time experimenting, i try to use all scraps, and control the things i experiment with. I, on second thought might try both and see which one gives better results.

Steve Spencer said:

I used white vinegar but I've heard of others using apple cider vinegar. If you want to hunt down acetic acid content stats of the different types you could do so, but I'd just dump some already rusting metal into white vinegar because I know it works firsthand. As mentioned before, steel wool is only used for the amount of surface area and thus how quickly you can get it to rust. I'd recommend finding some already rusting iron of any sort instead.

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