Aqua Fortis Question

[Micah Clark]

Is Aqua Fortis an either or finish? Does a builder choose either AF or a bottle of stain?

I want a certain color. . a nice light to moderate brown, not a yellow, a red or a black walnut color, and I want a brown which shows off a slightly darker curl. I also don't want a black stock in 20 years.

That being said, AF intrigues me, but seems like a bit of a roll of the dice on the color you will get.

Do people ever use AF with a light coat or two to make the curl pop, then stop the chemical process (how?) and "stain" the stock with something like Laurel Mountain Forge for the basic overall color they want?

Or am I asking a dumb question because the two do not mix?

 

[Chowmif16]

You are not asking dumb questions, but the answers are complex (as usual).
There are many blends of Aqua Fortis (AF). In general, I believe it is a Nitric Acid, with varying amounts of iron dissolved in it. There are others on the forum with far greater knowledge, and I will happily defer to them.
Depending on the brand you buy, it may be still acidic, or it may have been neutralized, or spent, by the addition of iron, or anywhere in between. With iron oxidized in it, it will give you a red finish and accentuate the curl of maple with blackish stripes. It can also give some yellow and orange. You have to heat the stock with a heat gun or any heat source such as coals etc. to draw out the finish with AF. The initial color it will give you is not particularly nice, it's the heat that allows the acid to do the work with the tannins in the stock and any iron oxidized in the AF.

Sounds like that is not what you want. It really depends on the wood you are using. Is it sugar maple or walnut or what??

To answer your other questions, you can also use stain with it. I recently used AF on a curly maple stock, and then used LMF Lancaster Maple, which really brought out some reds for me.

If you are simply looking for a brown color, my inexperienced advice would be to use stain, not AF.

There are techniques for bringing out the curl without AF, just search these forums. I cannot give advice in that respect.

As to your first question, AF is not a finish, it is akin to a stain. You do AF first, then stain if desired, then seal and/or finish.

This is a photo of a curly maple stock I just did with AF and then 2 coats of LMF Lancaster Maple. I am still applying the oil finish, so it is not complete at this point. You can see that it has accented the curl, and resulted in predominantly red with some yellow/gold. The lighting in the photo isn't great, suffice it to say that it really pops in the sunlight. The fore end of the stock is not so dark as it looks in the photo, it was just not lighted well.

IMG_3461 by chowmif16, on Flickr

That may not be what you are looking for, but it shows what AF can do.

Cheers,
Chowmi

 

[Zonie]

Aqua Fortis is made from iron dissolved in nitric acid.

Due to the iron it is somewhat redish in color but there is no way to know what color the wood will be after it is applied.

You paint it onto the wood and let it dry.

At this stage, you will see almost no change at all.

The dried wood is then subjected to heat. A lot of heat.

Back in the day they say the gunsmith used a red hot piece of iron held just above the wood to draw out the color.
Today, a lot of people use a paint stripping heat gun because it is easier to control.
(I tried using a propane torch and ended up charring my stock so I don't recommend using this method).

Anyway, the actual color depends on the AF you used and the wood.
The wood more than anything decides what color it will end up.

Because staining with AF is done before any finishing oils are applied, if the color or the shade of color doesn't suit the builder, more than a few will apply very light coats of a alcohol based stain to tint it.

Alcohol stains can be applied over and over to make them darker which is why light (thinned) coats are used.

Oil based stains on the other hand are very limited in the number of coats that can be applied.
The oil will also seep into the wood making it difficult to sand off a stain you don't like and then apply another one.

Hope this helps to answer your question.

 

[nhmoose]

I have found a good steel wooling after heating and the color changes and is to dark will lighten the harder parts of the maple and the curl really pops out.

 

[George]

Aqua Fortis is made from iron dissolved in nitric acid.

Being a bit picky, aqua fortis IS nitric acid. It means 'strong water'. When you react iron and aqua fortis, you get ferric nitrate. That's what is used as a stain.

Spence

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

Is there a technique w/ either AF or when AF is followed by stain the make the dark stripes as dark as they possibly can be?

That's what I'm looking for ... dark to almost black tiger stripes w/ a nice red-toned brown base coloring ala Keith Lisle's (Birddog on these forums) 'un-numbered' York that is on his webpage.

See: http://www.custommuzzleloaders.com/YorkCounty.html

 

[jimmy82]

Maybe a silly question, but did you try looking up the stain he listed as using? "Stain is Fiebings Dark Brown Dye" Quick google search shows that it's a leather dye, so you'll have to figure that part out.

Also, since you are after something specific, I would test on a piece of scrap that is from the stock blank. The excess I cut off of the butt stock to get desired LOP makes a good subject for coloring and providing pieces to fix my screw-ups. You don't have to stain and finish the whole thing, just a small patch to see what it looks like, then you have room for more small patches to experiment with.

 

[Col. Batguano]

This sounds silly but very thinned black paint can be used, which is then sanded away, The particles that dry on the closed cells (or light portion) of the wood will be on top and sanded away, the the particles that rest in the open ends(the stripes) will be seated deeper, and mot sand away. Of course, any dark particulate stain will work the same way. The key is to keep the coats thin.

 

[Vaino]

When I first started building MLers, I used quarter sawn very curly sugar maple for my first 4 builds and even at that time {1980} it was expensive. Since then, curl has become less and less important and what did become important is the architecture, embellishments and workmanship of my LRs.

To be sure, some curl is present on the lower grades of red maple that I presently use and there are "ways" to maximize the curl and I now mainly use Danglers stains from Jim Klein. But, if the curl still doesn't want to cooperate seeing curl is "finicky", the LR itself comes into play and carries the day.

Many of the foremost builders produce "works of art" that don't have anywhere near much curl...yet their builds are in demand.

I think beginning builders place too much emphasis on curl because they don't embellish their builds and want an outstanding feature to at least make their build interesting. Nothing wrong w/ that...I did the same when starting.......Fred

 

[Micah Clark]

You are not asking dumb questions, but the answers are complex (as usual).
There are many blends of Aqua Fortis (AF). In general, I believe it is a Nitric Acid, with varying amounts of iron dissolved in it. There are others on the forum with far greater knowledge, and I will happily defer to them.
Depending on the brand you buy, it may be still acidic, or it may have been neutralized, or spent, by the addition of iron, or anywhere in between. With iron oxidized in it, it will give you a red finish and accentuate the curl of maple with blackish stripes. It can also give some yellow and orange. You have to heat the stock with a heat gun or any heat source such as coals etc. to draw out the finish with AF. The initial color it will give you is not particularly nice, it's the heat that allows the acid to do the work with the tannins in the stock and any iron oxidized in the AF.

Sounds like that is not what you want. It really depends on the wood you are using. Is it sugar maple or walnut or what??

To answer your other questions, you can also use stain with it. I recently used AF on a curly maple stock, and then used LMF Lancaster Maple, which really brought out some reds for me.

If you are simply looking for a brown color, my inexperienced advice would be to use stain, not AF.

There are techniques for bringing out the curl without AF, just search these forums. I cannot give advice in that respect.

As to your first question, AF is not a finish, it is akin to a stain. You do AF first, then stain if desired, then seal and/or finish.

This is a photo of a curly maple stock I just did with AF and then 2 coats of LMF Lancaster Maple. I am still applying the oil finish, so it is not complete at this point. You can see that it has accented the curl, and resulted in predominantly red with some yellow/gold. The lighting in the photo isn't great, suffice it to say that it really pops in the sunlight. The fore end of the stock is not so dark as it looks in the photo, it was just not lighted well.

IMG_3461 by chowmif16, on Flickr

That may not be what you are looking for, but it shows what AF can do.

Cheers,
Chowmi

This is exactly what I have in mind. Very helpful. I have a sugar maple stock with about 30% perhaps 40% curl via a TVM late Lancaster kit I am building. I have a bottle of LMF Lancaster Maple stain because the LMF Maple was too red and I wanted a brown. The aqua fortis my coach has is the typical yellow label red bottle stuff I see most often as Aqua Fortis, but I can't recall the brand name. Thanks !!!

 

[Micah Clark]

YES Jim . .also very helpful. Thanks . . .LMF is alcohol based.

May ask how to stop the AF chemical process before staining ... i read ammonia once . . . but not sure if that's true or needed

Aqua Fortis is made from iron dissolved in nitric acid.

Due to the iron it is somewhat redish in color but there is no way to know what color the wood will be after it is applied.

You paint it onto the wood and let it dry.

At this stage, you will see almost no change at all.

The dried wood is then subjected to heat. A lot of heat.

Back in the day they say the gunsmith used a red hot piece of iron held just above the wood to draw out the color.
Today, a lot of people use a paint stripping heat gun because it is easier to control.
(I tried using a propane torch and ended up charring my stock so I don't recommend using this method).

Anyway, the actual color depends on the AF you used and the wood.
The wood more than anything decides what color it will end up.

Because staining with AF is done before any finishing oils are applied, if the color or the shade of color doesn't suit the builder, more than a few will apply very light coats of a alcohol based stain to tint it.

Alcohol stains can be applied over and over to make them darker which is why light (thinned) coats are used.

Oil based stains on the other hand are very limited in the number of coats that can be applied.
The oil will also seep into the wood making it difficult to sand off a stain you don't like and then apply another one.

Hope this helps to answer your question.

 

[Micah Clark]

Fred . . . You're right on my thinking . . . This IS my first build. I do have some lines in mind, which are mostly straight to thin out the look a bit, which I want to try, but actual engraving beyond basic moldings are way way beyond my level. I know I don't have a really curly stock, it was too expensive. . . bought a little beyond my wallet to get about 30% perhaps 40% curl. What curl it has would be nice to accentuate.

Thanks !!

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Aqua Fortis is made from iron dissolved in nitric acid.

Being a bit picky, aqua fortis IS nitric acid. It means 'strong water'. When you react iron and aqua fortis, you get ferric nitrate. That's what is used as a stain.

Spence

:thumbsup:

And to add..... nitric acid was also used with water and NO iron to get this type of result...

 

[Micah Clark]

Is it true that like browning a barrel . . .one needs to stop the chemical process of Aqua Fortis? If not the gun could get darker and darker over time? With what, is the AF process neutralized?

 

[Col. Batguano]

You need something PH basic to neutralize the acid. Some people use a baking soda paste. Others use dilute household ammonia.

 

[Micah Clark]

You need something PH basic to neutralize the acid. Some people use a baking soda paste. Others use dilute household ammonia.

Thanks !!! Baking soda & water, I assume. . probably easier than ammonia . . or less smelly, at least.

 

[Zonie]

Baking soda sounds like a bad idea to me.

When dissolved in water, it will penetrate the open wood fibers in the stripes and dry there.

Once dry, there is a good possibility the soda will return to its naturally white color.

Ammonia on the other hand is colorless and once it has evaporated it will leave nothing behind to mar the look of the stripes.

Speaking of marring the look of the stripes, I have no doubt that using thinned black paint will darken the curl but I think it will also cover up the iridescence that the wood grain produces.

For folks who have never seen good curly wood, once the finishing oil is applied there is a natural iridescence that shifts as the direction of the light source moves.

At some angles of the light, the stripes will almost disappear while at others they will stand out proudly.

I guess I'll bore most of you by going thru the reason curly maple or other hardwoods have these stripes.

The "curl" refers to the wavy direction the grain grows.
I made a sketch that shows the way the grain weaves.


As the wave reaches the surface it is cut off by whatever formed the surface.
This exposes the end grain of the wood forming the "stripes", and as we know, end grain absorbs stains much better than the grain that is running parallel with the surface.
That makes the end grain much darker than the wood right next to it.

The question about darkening the stripes came up and my answer to this is, try using lye water.

Lye water dissolves the tannin in the wood and floats it to the surface.

The exposed end grain gives off more tannin than the parallel grain areas do so it darkens the stripes.

This is a one time thing and multiple applications of lye water won't add any darkness.

For a description of the lye water process, follow this link
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/...d/6642/post/6642/hl/"lye+water"/fromsearch/1/

I'm pretty sure a person could use the lye water method after darkening the AF treated surfaces and because the lye is a strong base, it would neutralize the acid in the AF.

The vinegar wash would then neutralize the dried lye water.

 

[Black Hand]

I've used a paste of baking soda with no ill effects (no white bloom). I do rinse with water after allowing the the paste to sit for 20-30 minutes then remove the whiskers after drying.

 

[Obi-Wan Cannoli]

This sounds silly but very thinned black paint can be used, which is then sanded away, The particles that dry on the closed cells (or light portion) of the wood will be on top and sanded away, the the particles that rest in the open ends(the stripes) will be seated deeper, and mot sand away. Of course, any dark particulate stain will work the same way. The key is to keep the coats thin.

This sounds like a complete nightmare. :idunno:

 

[Col. Batguano]

I wasn't referring to paint or stain that is cut 50:50. I'l talking about an application that's cut 100+:1, and sanded in between applications.