Iron buff

Never tried it. How did you make it?

-- Maplewood, MN

To make truly black leather or rawhide we make a strong tea solution and then add a bunch of rusty iron. Is this the same thing? soaking leather in this solution results in leather that is a deep blue black and the stain goes through the leather. I’ve never tried it on wood.

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

I would be interested in seeing some pictures. What did you use to make it?

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

It is (I guess) a centuries old way of darkening wood, oak especially. I made my batch with 0000 steel wool pulled into chunks and put in a closed jar with a pint of white vinegar. You let it set and the vinegar dissolves the iron in the steel wool. The longer you let it set the darker it turns the wood. I got this out of a magazine, but I forget which one. I will post a picture of the samples I made on the projects page, because I can’t figure out how to do it here. The top is white oak and the bottom is red oak. (With and without flash)

-- bbqKing, Lawrenceville

I have used this technique before. The solution reacts with the tannins in the wood to produce the black color. It’s the same reaction that would cause a black stain around a nail if you drove a nail into the piece of oak and left it outside. As such, it only works on woods that contain tannins. Just two tips: You’ll need to seal it with a clearcoat. Also, don’t leave the vinegar and steel wool solution sealed up as it can explode.

-- Daniel, Southern Indiana -- "Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." -- http://blackdogwoodshop.etsy.com

There are lots of different chemical treatments that have been used throughout the centuries to color wood. Fuming oak in an ammonia steam bath (be careful to do this in a very well ventilated area…the ammonia thing is a little poisonous) was used to “ebonize” the wood over 100 years ago. You can also use a strong tea mixture to color oak, gives it a nutty brown cast. In a recent class I taught on wood finishing basics, I showed the class how simply wetting the surface of a piece of oak and then dropping a nail onto the board will cause discoloration. Your steel wool and white vinegar solution is essentially the same thing. You’re causing the tannic acid to react with the iron. By creating the steel wool solution you’ve figured out a was of dispursing the metal fairly evenly across the surface of the wood. I’d love to see some pictures of your samples and the clocks.

-- Chuck Bender, period furniture maker, www.acanthus.com