Chromium Trioxide

[JOJU]

Hello all my name is John from Michigan , new to the forum .
Has any one used chromium trioxide ?
Thanks John

[Rasch Chronicles]

For chrome plating or something else?

Best Regards,
Albert A Rasch
Albert A Rasch In Afghanistan

[DutchGramps]

It is a nice wood stain, I thing Dixie and Brownells sells it. But rather toxic!

[JOJU]

Sorry yes for stain on maple , I have had a bottle of it for years and not used it .
thanks JOHN

[76 warlock]

Yes, I have used it, I don't like the greenish color that it becomes after awhile. It is a mix of green and brown, but it does look very old when you are done.

[David Rase]

Yes, I have used it, I don't like the greenish color that it becomes after awhile. It is a mix of green and brown, but it does look very old when you are done.

CrO3 must be heated and nutralized like nitric acid in order to kill the chemical reaction and avoid the "pickle" look down the road.
DMR

[Dphariss]

Hello all my name is John from Michigan , new to the forum .
Has any one used chromium trioxide ?
Thanks John

Almost everyone I have heard of using it wished they had not.

Ferric Nitrate is very color fast, easy to use, gives the right color, whats not to like?
Either made with nitric acid and iron or from buy ferric nitrate crystals.

Dan

[Roger B]

Use something else.  I've never seen a stock that didn't turn pickle green over the years with it.  There are just too many other stains to use that are predictable, stable, & easy to use.
Roger B.

[Blacksmoke]

My advice:  STAY AWAY FROM IT!   Unless you like your gun to turn a "puke green" after a few years.  Neutralizing it will only slow the "green" process down a little.
Hugh Toenjes

[Long John]

Joju,

Who ever suggested chromium trioxide to you as a stock stain is either very foolish, very ignorant or really *#)*^~ at you!

Chromium salts, including chromium trioxide, are generally very toxic.  Chromium attacks the central nervous system and produces symptoms similar to multiple sclerosis.  The damage is permanent - you don't get better!  Using the stuff exposes you to chromium toxicosis.

Chromium salts all progress to one of several chromium oxides when exposed to air.  All of the chromium oxides arebrown to green in color.  Most wood stained with chromium trioxide will eventually turn a nauseating green color.  This is not generally considered a desired result. it is up to you.

With such a long, successful history of the use of either acid/iron stains or commercially available pigment stains there is to my mind absolutely no justification for using chromium compounds - NONE!

This is serious stuff!  If you just ruin and expensive piece of wood you are getting off lucky!

Best Regards,

JMC

[Ky-Flinter]

Years ago, before the Internet and ALR was around to warn me, I built my first long rifle and used Chromium Trioxide from Dixie to stain the stock.  It really made the curl pop and the color is a nice medium brown.  As I recall, I didn't have to use heat but I did neutralize it with baking soda.

Twenty years or so later, I still have the rifle.  It's still a nice medium brown but it does show a very faint green cast when the sunlight hits it just right.  Actually, I like it....  but the stuff is very toxic, so I have been using aquafortis lately.

-Ron

[bama]

Yep I bought my first parts at Dixie back in the early 70's and that is what they gave me to color the stock. I just lost that rifle in a robbery a while back, it originally had a nice dark brown color but it also had developed a slight green tint after about 10 years or so.

[Mad Monk]

The color of "spent" chromium trioxide is grass green.

I used it in the lab to remove polyvinly chloride residue from laboratory glassware.  When the solution turned green you knew the acid was "spent" and would no longer work.  It then went into the hazmat waste drum.

When you use it as a stock stain it attacks the wood being a mineral acid.  A form of chemical charring of the wood.  In the process the acid becomes "spent".  It is almost impossible to remove all of the spent acid from the wood after staining.  A number of schemes to wash it out of the wood have been tried.

After the stock is coated with a finish the spent acid remaining in the wood will be carried to the "interface" between the finish and the wood.  Slowing forming a green film that coats the bottom of the finish.  The spent acid remaining water-soluble in the wood and thus is migratory with moisture changes in the wood.

E. Ogre

[FL-Flintlock]

CrO3 must be heated and nutralized like nitric acid in order to kill the chemical reaction and avoid the "pickle" look down the road.
DMR
[/quote]

Wow, that statement caused some unpleasant flashbacks!  My old man was on the puke-green kick from the 50's through the 70's - walls, kitchen cabinets, shag carpet, appliances, furniture were all puke-green.  In the 80's he got on the @#$%/!!-brown kick, everything in & on the new house was @#$%/!!-brown ... I always hated, and still do, both of those colors and envisioning a pickle-green flinter, all I can picture are those pickle-green laminates stock Remington seemed to think so highly of.......  Blah!   

[JOJU]

Boy thanks you can bet I will not be using it at all .
JOHN

[kentucky bucky]

I've seen a few real nice rifles that turned green as a gourd.

[Ky-Flinter]

Here's pictures of the one I did 20-some years ago with Chromium Trioxide.






-Ron