Hacker Martin and red shoe dye?

[Treebeard]

In Fixfire 5 p.278  Hacker Martin in a letter to Lester Smith mentions finishing a stock with nitric acid and red shoe dye. I am with him on the nitric acid but red shoe dye? Filblings? Anyone tried this ?

.

[wattlebuster]

I know of several makers and rifles that have both nitric acid and brown or dark brown fiebings  shoe dye on them an they look good. I cant say I have ever heard of red though. Maybe it was all he had at the time.

[Hungry Horse]

Fiebing's is long on solvents and short on color. It sun fades like a sun of a gun, and is hard to apply without winding up with dark spots, and light spots. Lincoln's is a hundred percent better. Lincoln's medium brown can be applied with a rag, and then when still wet, wiped with another rag dampened with water ( no its not water base) but, it really works. It ages horn, and rawhide, and leather, nicely using the same process.

  Hungry Horse

[EC121]

I once used brown shoe dye right out of the grocery store.  It worked well. Shows the curl and hasn't faded in 30 yrs.  It leaves a mess on the wood after it dries that will  make you want to cry, but a good scrub with 4/0 gets rid of that and leaves a nice brown.  Cordovan dye should also work.

[JCKelly]

Thanks, HH. I used Fiebings yellow-sort of to dye a scrimshawed horn for my father.
Turned out beautiful. Few years later it was white.
Daggone it.
shoeshineexpress.com here I come.

[Hungry Horse]

JC;
  I use the medium brown on my Scrimshaw. I give it a super light coat, and then the wet rag wipe. It usually take a couple of applications, but it comes out a nice brownish orange that really looks vintage. By the way, any areas that haven't been polished out will be dark.
 I use their black dye to blacken the throats of horns that aren't naturally black.

  Hungry Horse

[bob in the woods]

I used leather dye a couple of times 15 to 20 years ago, and it faded a lot. Then I tried "Stag " chewing tobacco. That stuff would drop a bull to it's knees !!  It worked OK, but the stock kept wanting more .     Now I use iron dissolved in vinegar , and am much happier with the results.  The only other dye I use is a yellow food colour to help show up imperfections in the stock before finishing.
It doesn't impede the iron mixture from working, and I like the under tone.

[Shovelbuck]

Fiebing's is long on solvents and short on color. It sun fades like a sun of a gun, and is hard to apply without winding up with dark spots, and light spots. Lincoln's is a hundred percent better. Lincoln's medium brown can be applied with a rag, and then when still wet, wiped with another rag dampened with water ( no its not water base) but, it really works. It ages horn, and rawhide, and leather, nicely using the same process.

  Hungry Horse

 My experience with the med. brown is quite the opposite. Goes on easy with no light or dark spots, makes the figure in maple or other woods "Pop" a lot easier than traditional methods, and is a breeze to touch up if need be. My last three guns are done with it and no fading what so ever. If anything, one has gotten a little darker. No way I'll use anything else again. I use Minwax antique oil finish over it.

[smallpatch]

Why don't we just use alcohol based wood stains?  Way easier, readily available, and colors galore.
A nice combo is ferric nitrate and either yellow or orange or red  depending on the effect wanted.
LMF makes them all, as well as many others. All go on nicely, not splotchy, penetrates, won't fade and allows the figure to show through. 
Why use something else that you're not sure of?