Wood Colouring

Re: Wood Colouring

Russ Fairfield

>Sure do. I make my own spirit stains and could use them as a stain for the wood, but most often mixed into a shellac.

The wood chips or spices are steeped in hot denatured alcohol to extract the color. It can be used straight as a wood stain or as a thinner in the shellac.

Some of those I use are Kamala (orange), saffron (yellow), tumeric (yellow), Pernambucco (red), sandalwood (orange-red), Padauk (burgundy).

Concentrated blackberry juice is a good burgundy stain, and a strong tea made with alcohol is a brown stain.

I often use asphaltum in turpentine as a wood stain. The color can be from a pale yellow to a dark brown to almost black depending on the concentration. I buy the asphaltum at the Nursury as a wound sealer for trees.

Re: Wood Colouring

Tom Mullane

>Russ... how good of a yellow do you get with the tumeric.... also how long do you steep it and how much alcohol to tumeric do you use... thanks..

Re: Wood Colouring

john Lucas

>Tom

I give all my Osage Orange shavings to a local fiber artist. I have never made a dye from it but just soaking clothes in water gives you a bright yellow to orange yellow color.

Re: Wood Colouring

Russ Fairfield

>The color from Tumeric is a nice yellow, but it isn't as lightfast as that from Saffron or Kamala. I prefer the more reddish-yellow that I get from heartwood Pernambucco wood chips. Pernambucco heartwood will also make a very nice pen blank.

Put about an ounce of the Tumeric (or whatever) in a 1/2-cup of alcohol and put it in a covered Mason and let it set for several days. Pour off the liquid, and filter it through several layers of cheesecloth. Thicken it buy leaving the lid off the jar so the alcohol can evaporate.

The only thing that heating the alcohol will do is reduce the days to minutes. Setting the jar in the sun on a hot summers day will do the job. If you insist on heating the alcohol, do it in a double boiler. Don't let it boil, and have plenty of ventilation. If you can smell it, your ventilation isn't good enough.

Re: Wood Colouring

GeeSeaWhy

>Russ's response notwithstanding, I don't think there are many people in the woodturning field using natural dyes. One reason is probably the fact that most natural dyes are not very lightfast without a mordant. Mordants tend to be pretty nasty, highly reactive chemicals. You could have problems with the mordant reacting with your finish if you don't get rid of it - not a problem in the fiber world where you can always wash the yarn and "finishing" means knitting or weaving.

Graeme