Aqua fortis for browning?

[billd]

Has anyone browned with aqua fortis? The steel nose cap is pinned on my stock and after two coats of aqua fortis on the wood the nose cap has a real nice brown to it. 

My aqua fortis is my own brew, just nitric acid and iron turnings.  Am I wasting money buying LMF Browning?

Thanks,
Bill

[Dphariss]

For rust blue, I don't brown much. I found that until I started making my own that Wahkon Bay brown and AF mixed did best.
It will rust well obviously.The nitric acid is more aggressive than the brown so long as its acidic enough. I try to deplete my AF stain pretty well but leave the blueing solution fairly aggressive.

Dan

[Old Ford2]

Hi,
In mixing your aqua fortis for wood stainning, what strength of nitric acid do you use?
Thank You & Best Regards
Old Ford

[billd]

For this batch I used 69% nitric mixed with 3 parts water. I added the iron turnings and let it sit for about 3 days. Some iron was still left in the bottom of the bottle. I strained it thru a tee shirt and tried it, way too dark for me. I added 2 more parts water to dilute it and it works great. So far I've used it on 2 maple guns and just did a ash stock today.

The difference in this batch was I used cast iron. Some told me not to use it but the Mad Monk said it would be fine. I tried it and he was right, best color I ever had. A nice brown with a dark reddish tint. And yes, I used USA made Grade 30 cast iron.
Bill

[Mad Monk]

Bill,

If you look at Angier's book on blueing and browning you will see a comment that the nitrate of iron was once used to brown barrels.

My test piece was a wrought iron bolt from the mid-1800's.  Real charcoal wrought iron.  Gave a nice brown.

But when I tried it on a "modern" ML barrel he would not give a brown that would adhere to the metal.

Another view of this.
When I made my nitrate of iron I used long 1/2" bolts that had sat in a local hardware store for years.  They had a black finish on them that I would file off.  After I pulled these bolts out of the bottle with the nitric acid, when the reaction had gone to completion, the bolts quickly turned a real nice brown color.

E. Ogre