I've heard that you can mix steel wool with a couple of other things to create a nice dark rich black like substance that can be applied to wood like a stain. Has anyone heard of this, and if so do you know the other ingredients and proportions? Thanks!
I have made and used stain by dissolving (soaking until the liquid is saturated with iron) nails in vinegar. I'm sure steel wool would work even faster. It is an interesting color. ___________________________ Keep the whole world singing. . . . DanG
Vinegar (or oxalic acid) will weakly etch iron forming unstable compounds in solution; time or light exposure will break these compounds down, so they have to be mixed up fresh.
The reaction with tannin (which is present in oak and some other woods) precipitates small iron particles which quickly form black iron oxide (hematite). The solution can diffuse into the wood cells, so the color is actually inside the surface wood fibers, and it looks different from any applied black pigments.
There is a variant of this process that uses macerated oak-tree gall, which produces oak-gall ink (the standard ink of the nineteenth century and before).
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I thried this several weeks ago when I asked about "ebonizing" walnut. It gave a black tint that tended towards grey. Even soaking the piece did not give a true black. Something that worked quite well was a Marks-A-Lot marking pen. This gave a true deep dark black, very much like ebony. It's great for small pieces, but can be tricky (and expensive) with anything very large. Once dry it seems impervious to solvents and takes shellac and water-based poly without streaking or smearing.
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