• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

walnut staining wool blankets

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Minuteman

40 Cal.
Joined
Jul 25, 2006
Messages
119
Reaction score
0
Alright fellers I have two five gallon buckets full of walnuts I picked up in October. What do I have to do to dye a couple wool blankets with 'em?
Is it as simple as : crush'em , boil 'em ,strain out the bits, and then when its cooled some, put in the blanket?
I bought the rit dye today , dark brown but the last time I used it I didn't use enough I guess and it came out more like a rusty red than brown.
I wanna use the walnut hulls if I can, any help or tips wuld be greatly appreciated. :grin:
Chris
 
:(
Well I guess I'll just have to experiment since nobody seems to know how to do it.
I got a big fire burning on the other side of the garage and half the walnuts crushed and soaking in a bucket.Dug out my big sap boiling pan to boil it in. I'll get it good and hot tonight, let it cool down overnight, strain out the pieces, re heat it then see how well it dyes. I'll let ya know how it works. :blah:
Wonder if the shells will burst if I boil them......
 
Add the walnuts to the water and bring to a boil for a while (Add salt if you want). Let cool. Prewet your wool and add to the dye bath. You could either cold-soak or bring to a simmer for a while. DO NOT add cold wool to hot dye, it will shrink. Remove when it is dyed and either rinse or allow to dry before rinsing (with cotton the 2nd option seems to set the color better). Good luck.
 
Thanks for the response!
The boiled walnuts are cooling right now.
I'll take your advice and add the wet blanket to the bath, after I strain out the solids ,then heat it up a little. Though by the looks of the dye it won't take long.
Looks pretty strong.
I'll let ya'll know how it goes.
 
I've had trouble dyeing wool (a protein) with walnuts. There's a lot of info re walnut dye out there e.g. mordants, pot material etc., so you may want try Google and see what you come up with.
 
Next fall, just save the hulls.(sounds like you saved the nut in the hull too?) They slip right off the walnut when they fall and turn black.
Use rubber gloves, and pop the walnuts out, toss the hulls in a basket....I then spread the hulls to dry on an old window screen...once dry, I dump the hulls in a bucket and pulverize them with a length of 4x4 (like a pestal and mortar)...

This hull dust keeps for years, and is way handier than using the hulls with the nut still inside...also, theres less problem with rodents and bugs coming after the nut kernels, which can be a problem...
 
Remeber too that when you dry the blankets to lay them flat on the ground if practical. If left hanging to dry there will be more of a tendency to streak as the dye runs through the fabric and drips out.
 
Used my wife's good strainer/flour sifter to get the solids out this mornin. Worked great, good thing she wasn't home! Had to start a fire under it to get rid of the ice first !
Put one blanket in for a half hour removed it and quickly realized it was gonna take waaaaay longer than that to get any color in the wool. Did second one for 1 1/2 hours then put them both in for about 4 more hours. One had almost 6 hours in and one had closer to 4.
They both turned out very different from the cream color they started out. But they weren't exactly "brown" .Kinda mottled , a little dark here a little lighter there. Looks like good camouflage though.
Some osnaberg I threw in turned out great. Deep brown color.
One tip; make SURE you wear old clothes you don't mind stainin cuz they are gonna get stained.
 
I also have tried dyeing stuff with walnut hulls. Walnuts do dye stuff well, but how do you get the dye to stay? It always seems to fade. The chemical/step that makes the dye stay is the "mordant". Sometimes salt can be used, but when you add a mordant I do not know. Anybody know of a good mordant for wool/ walnuts, and when you apply it?
 
Here's a place with dye experts. Perhaps an email to them will net you an answer.
http://www.yarnbarn-ks.com/

They have a wide range of dye colors that can be mixed to produce yet more colors. These are cold water dyes. You can see a picture of their dye supply on the dye web page, but they don't list any colors or prices, so again an email would be the way to go.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I know this is an older topic, but I'd like to know how did the dying the wool blanket with walnuts experiment work out?
BTW ,....... when I strain my walnut husks, I use 1/4 inch mesh and strain the big hunks out of the dye over a second bucket. You might have to stop a couple of times as the husks clog the screen and they need dumped before you can continue. Then I next strain the dye thru a common window screen, and that gets out the littler stuff, but there is still alot of messy organic material left in the dye.
I buy a pair of queen size panty hose (extra large size) at the dollar store and stretch the top over a bucket. The dye is poured into the panty hose. When you take the panty hose out of the bucket, the feet are full of all the organic manure and all you are left with in your bucket is pure walnut dye.
Ohio Rusty >
 
It went pretty well . There was a lot of "matter" left in the blankets but I'm sure it'll shake out with some use. My dye solution does need strained again.
Thanks for you interest.
 
Back
Top