Question for the Vinegar Stain guru's

[Ky-Flinter]

In October '07 I bought a quart of Heinz distilled white vinegar (5% acidity) and dropped a 3" long piece of 1/8" dia. 1018 steel in it.  A few days later I added 6" of 1/8" dia., 50 year old fence wire.  Screwed the cap on and forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago.

There was a lot of milky looking sludge on the bottom but the liquid was a great reddish tea sort of color.  I poured the liquid thru a paper coffee filter and discarded the sludge, then filtered the liquid again.  After sitting a few days the liquid had formed a rusty red looking skim on top.  When I picked up the bottle the skim turned to flakes and sank to the bottom.  Now the liquid is sort of milky looking.

Should I keep filtering? 

Did I use too much steel/iron and so, need to cut the solution with more vinegar?

Should I throw it out and start over? 

-Ron

[BILL OKLAHOMA CITY]

test it on a piece of scrap and show us what you get.

[rich pierce]

I'm not sure putting the lid on was a good idea.  Might limit oxygen?

[Ky-Flinter]

Bill,
I did try it on some scrap and it was an ugly gray-green.  I hit it with some Hydrogen Peroxide, which had no effect, but the H2O2 was old, so maybe it was just water.

Might limit oxygen?

Rich,
I'm sure it did.  After reading so much here about the vinegar smell while applying to the wood and the chemical process being complete when the smell was gone, I thought if I left the bottle open the "good stuff" in the vinegar would evaporate.  I guess I'm confuzzed.

-Ron

[Long John]

K,

The sludge was iron oxide hydrate.  Iron makes about a dozen hydrates al with different colors.  the tes-like solution was iron acetate solution - ready to use.  When you opened up the jar you let in more oxygen.  It combined with the iron acetate to form more iron oxide hydrate which is insoluble so it settled to the bottom of the container.

Start over.  Forget the 1018 steel.  Use old nails or barbed wire and vinegar.  Put the lid on tight and let sit for a week or so.  Decant off the liquid into a clean jar and add about 1/2 again as much fresh vinegar.  Your stain is ready to use.  Use it!  If you notice that teh wood turns kind-of gray don't worry.  that gray color will turn a nice chocolate brown when you put oil on it.  Try it - it really will!

That is how this rifle was stained.



Best Regards,

JMC

[Bill of the 45th]

Hey, more Alchemy magic.   Great job John!

Bill