horn colors..screw up

[2172]

I'm doing a horn for a friend..plug in, scrimshaw done, decided horn was just too white. Had a solution of "Old Bones" on hand, put horn in. After 3-4 hours,barely any color. Dumped the rest of the Old Bones bottle into the solution, put horn in, and forgot it for about 5 hours..horn came out so dark brown it looked like mahogany. Scrimshaw can't be seen. Made a strong solution of Chlorox and put horn in. 4 hours has brought it to the light tan look I wanted. Should anyone else suffer from senior ADD and so screw up, I pass on this solution. Hank

 

Yes, Old Bones should be "wiped on", not "soaked in". But, you know that now. :wink:

 

[omarick1948]

I don't know how deep you do engraving, but most of the time you can just use #0000 steel wool and buff the color off and maybe do a little touch-up on the scratching. OLD BONES is no more than Potassium Panangemate and only sets on the surface of the horn or antler material, where coloring with RIT DYE, onion skins, sumac, tea, coffee or other natural organic methods will accutually penitrates deeper and has a wider range of color mixtures for variety with no long range health effects or dangers of using PP or other acids.

Rick

 

[2172]

thanks to both of you for comments. After getting the hue to about what I wanted, I decided I did not like the fit of the base plug, and was able to get it out. I boiled the horn again, and found that the boiling had removed about all of the Old Bones coloring. Used a bottle to get a round horn base and made a better plug. I'm going to re-cut the scrimshaw, and will then rub on some old bones (I didn't know that it was to be swabbed on..thanks). I've also decided that the strap on the inkle room looks crappy, so that'll be scrapped and a better one done. I have made about 25 horns or so over the past 40 years, and have never had so much trouble...Hank