Mordant's & Dyes for Natural Staining

**Mustela** · 15th November 2012, 11:11 PM

Regarding wood staining, has anyone had any recent experience with using natural dyes and mordents for staining wood and can they suggest where I can buy the chemicals from (I live in Sydney)
In his book Neil Ellis mentions mordents like tannic acid, potassium bichromate and alum as well as the more recognisable vinegar, cream of tartar and tin, but the book's not clear about the concentration or quantities of some of these chemicals.

Thanks BTW…does anyone have a heap of old walnut skins lying around
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**tea lady** · 16th November 2012, 08:05 AM

I have also wanted to dabble in this. The chemicals might be able to be got from people who are in to dying wool as a few are the same.

As for recipes, not a clue. Google? :S

Would love to see the results of your experiments.

**dr4g0nfly** · 16th November 2012, 08:36 AM

I'm hoping this works. The link is to my DropBox site, public folder on French Polishing.

It contains a very old (1900ish) book scanned to PDF (8Mb I'm afraid, so too big to attach) with all the old recipes for stains and polishes and a list of old chemical names to modern chemistry names.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pei5l2zi8njhrqq/6IpSYSQBJi

Please come on in (you'll need a DropBox account) and help yourselves.

**Chief012** · 16th November 2012, 09:55 AM

Thanks for the dropbox entries Dragonfly,..very handy

**Humphrey9999** · 17th November 2012, 09:31 AM

I've done a little ebonising lately. You can get tannic acid from brewing suppliers, in the form of tanivin, a chestnut extract. Works great in combination with iron/vinegar, for a nice deep black.

**ubeaut** · 19th November 2012, 11:46 AM

Since the Government and do-gooders started wrapping everyone up in cotton wool it has become almost impossible to get many of the chemicals that used to be readily available up until a few years ago. Now you just about need an act of parliament to buy most of them. Some old Chemist shops may have the odd jar of potassium bichromate or cond's crystals still kicking around, might get some alum and ammonia there as well.

Bronson & Jacobs used to be a good place to get all sorts of chemicals etc but mostly in bulk. They were taken over by Orica around 2004 and not sure what they have any more. Many of the chemicals can be found in food or cosmetic industry information so have a look there.

There are also specialist chemical and scientific suppliers but you may need some sort of special security clearance just to get in the front door, thanks to back yard illicit drug manufacturers.
Try: John Morris Scientific

Ironic, isn't it..... They've wrapped us up so tight in cotton wool for our own protection, that it is now virtually impossible to buy a roll of cotton wool to use for French Polishing, or wrapping yourself up in, etc.

Anyway... Hope this is of some little help.

Cheers - Neil

**Humphrey9999** · 19th November 2012, 12:08 PM

Originally Posted by ubeaut

Some old Chemist shops may have the odd jar of ...... cond's crystals still kicking around......

I got my Condy's Crystals, (potassium permanganate), here: Gold Cross Potassium Permanganate 50g - ChemistDirect.com.au
50g will last me forever.

And they have alum powder here: David Craig Alum Powder 100g - ChemistDirect.com.au

**Mustela** · 21st November 2012, 10:19 PM

Thanks to everyone who responded. It appears that in Australia there no longer any demand for, and hence no industry supplying the older type of finishing chemicals. However from what has been posted here and what I have gleaned from the net, there are still people in Australia using natural dyes and mordents but on material other than wood (ie textiles).I am especially interested to see if our native plant extracts used to dye wool and silk can be used on wood.
Thanks to Dragonfly for the DropBox link, Humphrey for the suggestion of brewing suppliers for tannic acid and Neil for the chemical and scientific suppliers info. And yes anne-maria. I’ll keep you posted on any developments and thanks for the wool idea.
Rosie
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