tobacco stain for maple

[ironjaw41]

is there anyone out there that has any success with  a tobacco based stain. was just going to put plug of tobacco in alcohol. and let soak .
am i nuts?  built a rifle at our vacation place but no stain available  close by.
thanks for reading and I may have provided a good chuckle.   

[Herb]

Yes, I read about that some years back.  Even got a package of Red Man chewing tobacco to use, but never did.  Don't remember how I learned about it.

[Dphariss]

If you can build a rifle at the place I assume there is a Post Office somewhere near that will allow ordering and receiving stain.
Tobacco juice will likely stain the wood. But its color fastness I could not attest to.

Dan

[Hungry Horse]

 In my opinion tobacco is worthless. It does a very poor job on maple, and is not much better on walnut. Vinegaroon is the way to go. If you can't get vinegar, and rusty iron, where you are, your'e too darn far back in the woods.

                    Hungry Horse

[KentSmith]

My Dad used Bull of the Woods in ammonia for a lot of his furniture projects but I had to let him down easy when I told him I didn't like it on curly maple. 

[t.caster]

My second rifle customer insisted I use his tobbaco stain. I think it was Levi Garret and ammonia. It came out quite light, just a golden tone, but it was just what he wanted. I didn't like it and never used it again.
It was a beautiful curly stock and the tobacky didn't do it justice. It was just a novelty thing for him.

[bob in the woods]

I tried chewing tobacco on maple , years ago. I wasn't the greatest. I now use vinegar and iron filings, and am very happy with the results.

[bedbugbilly]

Years ago - like in the early 1960's - I built my first front loader - at the ripe old age of 12.  The suggestion of using plug or chewing tobacco and putting it in a jar of ammonia was put forth in the Dixie Gun Works catalog - in the back where they used to put all sorts of useful little tidbit information.  I experimented with it - primarily on hard maple - and never had much success with it!  I tried Mail Pouch, Beechnut, etc. - zippo.  I just couldn't get it to absorb well at all.  So, I never used it again.

Since getting on this site . . . I was interested in the concept of using "vinegaroon" for stain . . . just never thought of it.  I use it in my leatherwork as it is an excellent dye and creates a deep black on leather goods.  I have a nice curly maple blank waiting to be made in to an Ohio rifle that I'm looking forward to experimenting with the vinegaroon.

I was interested in reading this thread about the tobacco stain . . . for years I thought I was maybe "doing something wrong" . . . probably was but it's interesting to hear that others have tried it as well.

[Habu]

Vinegaroon works better on maple, but I've always thought Mr. Kirkland neglected a step in the instructions for his tobacco stain.  It works OK if you first treat the maple with a tannin mixture (strong tea, etc).  But it is the ammonia that is doing the staining, not the tobacco.  It works "as is" on oak. . . .

[ironjaw41]

thanks for the input. will use aqua fortes. my best friend has some here.
we are only 65 miles from Missoula, not really back woods. but very quiet.
thanks again all.

[David R. Pennington]

Like everyone else, I never could get very much color out of it. I tried plug tobacco and even twist but couldn't get much color. Besides I never did like a rifle that wants to spit all the time.