Ferric Nitrate Solution

[ZUG]

Anyone make their own? What is your amount of ferric nitrate crystals to distilled water?

 

[longcruise]

Make it all the time. I don't measure anything. Just dump what looks like enough into the water. I use small cleaned jelly jars. Can't say this for fact, but I think the chemistry of the wood has more influence on the results than the crystal/water ratio.

 

[BlazingIron]

Search “Aqua fortis question” from Jan 30, 2006. Gives a good explanation.

Scott

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
A good place to start is 6 parts water to 1 part ferric nitrate by volume. Test and then adjust if too dark or too light. You can also dissolve the crystals in denatured alcohol.

dave

 

[ZUG]

Thanks all for your replies -- I have AF but it is very old and I want new stuff so I purchased some ferric nitrate crystals and wanted to give it a try

 

[Col. Batguano]

What Dave said. You will find that a water carrier will stay on the stock longer and give better penetration than alcohol, which evaporates faster. There are times you want less penetration though, such as when you want the lighter stripes to come out lighter. The same result can be had by rubbing the stock back with steel wool (after it is neutralized of course), and give you a little better control.

Why don't you experiment with both carriers on your scrap and see what you like the best. I find finish experimentation one of the more interesting parts of building. Ya never know what you're gonna get.

 

[ZUG]

Here is my ferric nitrate solution - 5 parts distilled water to 1 part ferric nitrate crystals. We will give it a try on some maple cut-offs later.

 

[Col. Batguano]

I took Dave's advice before and started with a 6:1 ratio. Then I tried double applying it (to effectively get a 12:1). , and Then, I diluted it back to a 3:1 (all on different portions of the same piece of scrap). Surprisingly, there wasn't a lot of difference in the color (after the heat blush).

Then I experimented with different neutralizers (baking soda paste, household ammonia, hardware store lye). Baking soda and ammonia gave me pretty much the same color, but lye imparted a little bit of orange, and seemed to make the stripes jump out a little bit more.

Then I wiped different stains and dyes over everything, and rubbed it back some.

So the moral of the story is that there are a lot of pieces on the chess board that you can move around, so don't be in too much of a rush. Finish and color is one of the very FIRST things you see when you are looking at a gun. If it looks good, it will make everything else you did look that much better. If it's bad, you won't see anything else.

 

[ZUG]

Yesterday I did a comparison with ferric nitrate and aqua fortis. I did a section on two different stocks one stock was red maple and the other was sugar maple. The ferric nitrate was new mix at a 5/1 ratio and the aqua fortis was about 20 years old and was purchased from Eric Kettingburg (spelling). I found that the new ferric nitrate worked faster to stain the wood, but the end results were almost the same when blushed with the heat gun. Here are the pictures - you be the judge. I applied one coat of Permyln sealer on each section. There are three pictures for each stock - top is blushed with hear gun middle is with the Permyln sealer and the bottom picture is after the stain has dried for 2 hours. I put two coats of stain on the wood.