Author Topic: Making maple wood REALLY dark,as in almost black  (Read 12878 times)

Offline Robby

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Re: Making maple wood REALLY dark,as in almost black
« Reply #25 on: November 05, 2014, 02:00:32 AM »
You could be right, I don't know what the base used in inletting black is, but it seems to me that once it is suspended in any finish it would look blotchy, and unevenly distributed. Just sounds like a disaster looking for a place to occur.
Robby
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Offline mountainman70

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Re: Making maple wood REALLY dark,as in almost black
« Reply #26 on: November 05, 2014, 04:45:26 AM »
So many choices,thanks each of you.One of my fellow smart alec friends suggested I just spray paint it satin black,like my ol 70 Catalina.Aint sure of that idea.Whadda y;all think?I like flatblack on some things.Never painted a long rifle.Dave ???

Offline gunmaker

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Re: Making maple wood REALLY dark,as in almost black
« Reply #27 on: November 05, 2014, 08:33:08 AM »
their were some painted back in the day.  Records show them imported into the colonies....
« Last Edit: November 05, 2014, 08:33:58 AM by gunmaker »

Offline Kermit

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Re: Making maple wood REALLY dark,as in almost black
« Reply #28 on: November 05, 2014, 08:46:37 AM »
One of the Swedish or Norwigen guys talked about that while ago, he's restocking a musket and he used some kind  a tar product.  Common up there 2 centurys ago I guess.   

Boat sauce. Equal parts BLO, turpentine, and Stockholm tar. A touch of Japan drier doesn't hurt. Turns traditional boats black. UV moves the process along. Some of us think it smells good too.
"Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly." Mae West

Offline Mad Monk

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Re: Making maple wood REALLY dark,as in almost black
« Reply #29 on: November 05, 2014, 08:22:43 PM »
If you go here http://www.jimkibler.net/blog/   and scroll down to the section on burl, Jim give a very good description of how he does it.
I tried boiling down some sumac the other day, trying to get some concentrated tannic acid to experiment with but it didn't seem to work. Anyone ever try to extract tannins from plants with a high concentration of it. Maybe I'll have to buy some

Used to do that all of the time.

Firewood piles looking for oak that had been out for about a year.  Bark loose.  Peel the bark.  Look for deposits of white powder on the inner layer of bark.  Scrap it off.  That is the tannic acid from the tree in something akin to a powdered form.  Or break the bark up into little pieces and place in a pot of near boiling water.  Change the bark two or three times.  When you boil the bark you get the tannic acid along with some brown coloring matter out of the bark.
Be advised that if you store the bark solution in a sealed bottle it will over time develop mold on the top of the liquid.

Bark from various trees had long been the source of tannic acid used in the old hide tanning factories,  Different types of tree barks would impart different colors to the finished leathers.

Mad Monk