My wife and I gathered alot of mulberries recently. We made juice. I tried some on fiddleback maple. WOW! It was beautiful. The color was a hue of purple. It’s probably appropriate for some lady or child related projects.
In the past, I let black walnut husks decompose and soaked them in water. Strained thru cheesecloth and used it as a water based dye. Had to wear rubber gloves and the result was just great.
Has anyone else tried making “homebrew” stain/dye?
Replies
There are a great many such formulae. The First American Furniture Finisher's Manual Edited by Robert D. Mussey, Jr. is a reprint of an 1827 manual is one source. Jeffery P. Greene American Furniture of the 18th Century has several appendixes of such receipes and has lots of other useful information on period furniture reproductions. Olde Mill Cabinet Shoppe is a source for many of these older style materials www.oldemill.com
That said, there is a lot of reason to stay with aniline dyes instead of many of the natural dyes. The natural materials are often, but not always, fugitive to light, fading in a relatively short period. Chemical dyes are often fairly poisonous, and typically interact more with the wood, making it more necessary to build using wood from the same tree to achieve uniform results.
Using dry pigments to mix stains is a somewhat different story. It is relatively hard to find, particularly in small quantities, pigment only stains other than gel stains. Yet it isn't very difficult to mix dry pigment with a bit of varnish, a tad of BLO to extend the working time, and enough thinner for a comfortable consistency. The earth colors that typically work well for finishing wood are often light fast so that isn't so much a problem. Also notice the precision of my receipe. Instead of dry pigments, you can use artist's oil paints (though these may lengthen drying time a bit), japan colors, or even UTC colors.
"Has anyone else tried making "homebrew" stain/dye?"
Yes, I've made a dye out of bloodwood. I got the best extraction by boiling the chips (outside - there's an odor that I found unpleasant). It's a quite nice brownish-red stain, and unlike most plant extractives, fairly light fast. From what I understand from reading period sources, it was a common source for dyestuff in the 18th century.
I worked on some pieces to go with a collection of early 1800's farm furniture from Quebec ,that we had to stain/paint really with pigs blood and then shellac them after rubbing through in spots so the matched the original pieces better. Have seen other pieces done this way it looks really good with age more brown then red. Learned some coffee-tea and vinegar mixtures that work well years ago too.
Dan
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled