Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/8/19, 4:12 PM #1

Barry Irby
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Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

Barry Irby

I bought some Van Dykes Crystals. Supposedly made from boiled down walnut husks or whatever. The instructions were to add the crystals to hot water and dissolve them, then use it as stain and let it dry 12 hours. I wanted to use it to even out the color on the walnut bed I built for my son and DIL. Did not like it. Nearly black, very opaque. Threw the first batch away.

I started on a computer/gaming table. The file cabinet that is to be part of the base is stained very nearly black on oak. I am making the top out of Oak. Decided to try the Crystals. Being in a hurry I decided to mix them in Denatured Alcohol, thinking it would dry much faster and I would not have to wait 12 hours. Nope. Dumped some crystals in the alcohol and ....nothing. It looked like black sand swirling around in clear alcohol. Did not dissolve at all. Hmm?

Back to the water. Turns oak nearly black with a hint of red. Perfect.

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/8/19, 8:05 PM #2

John McGaw
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Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not *LINK*

John McGaw

Here, try a dose of this. Guaranteed to make your eyes water, at the very least...

All About Solvents (In non-easy lessons)

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/8/19, 8:43 PM #3

Kneale Brownson
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Re: Poor Chemist instead

Kneale Brownson

- - -

I’m a fairly spry 82-year-old who had been a reader/participant at WoodCentral since the demise of Badger Pond. I started visiting BP to learn something about finish for a project I’d completed and became hooked on internet forums as a way of increasing my knowledge about all sorts of topics. I have been a moderator for a couple other forums on subjects I enjoy. My interest in woodworking began in the early 1970’s when my wife and I had contractors add to our house near Traverse City, MI, and I ended up doing the trim work to reduce mounting costs. I had no tools. I bought a P-C skilsaw, hammer, screwdrivers and one of those wooden miter boxes with a backsaw. I made trim for windows and doors from one-by lumber and started my woodworking career. At the same time, I started a 50-year career as a ski instructor. I got onto the night shift at a mental hospital so I could ski days, and spent my 30s and 40s with that schedule. I eventually replaced the PC-upside-down-in-a-board with a real table saw and began the purchase of enough equipment to fill a jam-packed 40-foot shipping container we used after we sold our property in Michigan. The ski instructing had taken us to Colorado and we were spending too much on maintaining utilities for two homes. A couple years ago, the dozen years spent at 10,000 feet of elevation was making my body produce too many red blood cells, so we had to leave my “forever” home in the mountains and we moved back to Michigan. Now I have to find myself a shop space for all those tools in the container.

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/8/19, 8:46 PM #4

Bill Tindall, E.TN.
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Barry study link and report back

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/8/19, 9:23 PM #5

Barry Irby
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And to think I started college as a......

Barry Irby

Chemical Engineer. And graduated in Building Construction.

I didn't understand any of it.

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/9/19, 7:04 PM #6

Kneale Brownson
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Organic chemistry and physics did my plans in.

Kneale Brownson

From about age 12 thru 19, I was going to be a surgeon. Worked summers in operating rooms as a scrub tech passing instruments. The semester I took organic and physics together at U of MI showed me I wasn't going to get into med school.

Probably best. I've loved my 50-year career as a ski bum.

- - -

I’m a fairly spry 82-year-old who had been a reader/participant at WoodCentral since the demise of Badger Pond. I started visiting BP to learn something about finish for a project I’d completed and became hooked on internet forums as a way of increasing my knowledge about all sorts of topics. I have been a moderator for a couple other forums on subjects I enjoy. My interest in woodworking began in the early 1970’s when my wife and I had contractors add to our house near Traverse City, MI, and I ended up doing the trim work to reduce mounting costs. I had no tools. I bought a P-C skilsaw, hammer, screwdrivers and one of those wooden miter boxes with a backsaw. I made trim for windows and doors from one-by lumber and started my woodworking career. At the same time, I started a 50-year career as a ski instructor. I got onto the night shift at a mental hospital so I could ski days, and spent my 30s and 40s with that schedule. I eventually replaced the PC-upside-down-in-a-board with a real table saw and began the purchase of enough equipment to fill a jam-packed 40-foot shipping container we used after we sold our property in Michigan. The ski instructing had taken us to Colorado and we were spending too much on maintaining utilities for two homes. A couple years ago, the dozen years spent at 10,000 feet of elevation was making my body produce too many red blood cells, so we had to leave my “forever” home in the mountains and we moved back to Michigan. Now I have to find myself a shop space for all those tools in the container.

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/10/19, 11:40 AM #7

AZ
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I wanted to be an engineer until I got to calculus

AZ in Colorado Springs

History worked out much better.

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/10/19, 3:22 PM #8

John K Jordan
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I wanted to be a historian until I studied history

John K Jordan

Calculus, physics, and the other aspects of engineering were so much easier for me than history since I could derive almost anything from the basics while I could barely remember the date of my birthday - how could I possibly remember when the war of 1812 started or who was buried in Grant's tomb?? For physics I just had to remember F=M*A. But due to it's nature, chemistry required extreme measures.

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/10/19, 8:41 PM #9

Bill Howatt
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Re: And to think I started college as a......

Bill Howatt

I found all topics quite interesting until you got past say, the first year or so, then they all become a lot of work and more confusing.

Bill

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/10/19, 10:26 PM #10

Barry Irby
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Re: Barry study link and report back

Barry Irby

This is an excellent article and should be re-read by some of us older furniture finishers. I ran a large number of organometallic (Li & Grignard) in my research on very difficult materials (trifluoromethyl substituted aromatics), using ether and THF solvents. The discussion here is right on the mark for choosing reaction solvents.

Thanks for posting this.

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/11/19, 2:28 PM #11

John McGaw
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Re: I wanted to be an engineer until I got to calc

John McGaw

Yeah. It was calculus that got me too. I went along just fine in all of my maths courses up until then when my mind called for a full stop "that doesn't make sense, go no further" and I never managed to get past it. I did manage to eventually become a systems analyst/designer/programmer but every time I got to a problem that "needed" a calculus solution I managed to work around it. As an official old fart now I don't have to think about any math much beyond simple arithmetic.

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/11/19, 2:36 PM #12

Barry Irby
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Re: I wanted to be an engineer until I got to calc

Barry Irby

It's a long story, but I had a very poor high school background for engineering.

I go to college and pounded my way through two years of engineering math. Much of it calculus. It was a huge relief to be done with that crap. Then I took Physics. You guessed it, Calculus all over again. That's when I bailed.

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/11/19, 2:44 PM #13

John in NM
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Ironically....

John in NM

I went from architecture to engineering to geology, and 25 years later my job title is engineer.

However, I'm more of a glorified mechanic, so there isn't much math involved. The last chemical engineer I met spent his career in computer programming

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/13/19, 5:32 PM #14

Barry Irby
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Re: Ironically....

Barry Irby

I am still using some of the stuff I learned in Chemical Engineering. I have figured out how to turn beer and fine Bourbon into urine.

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/13/19, 7:18 PM #15

John K Jordan
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Re: Ironically....

John K Jordan

A good friend of mine went from studying astronomy/astrophysics to getting her PHD in geology. Maybe it was more down-to-earth.

JKJ

Re: Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

4/14/19, 12:01 PM #16

Jason Roehl in Lafayette, IN
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LOL!

Jason Roehl in Lafayette, IN

I'm pretty good at that, too.

On weekends, I spend half the day wondering if it's too late to drink coffee, and the other half wondering if it's too early to drink beer. During the week, that changeover happens at 4:30PM, when I walk out of work.

Cheers!

Jason

Poor Chemistry.....Or Not

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