Home made reagents

[Scota4570]

The Canadian AF thread gives me an idea.  All sorts of things are getting harder to find.  What are folks mixing for themselves?  For stain, I bought ferric nitrate and mix it with water.  I have made lots of blueing and browning solutions.  For instance Stannous Chloride and any nitrate or  nitrite makes an effective quick brown. I now avoid all solutions that contain mercuric chloride for health reasons.  Any proven homemade reagents out there?

[Craig Wilcox]

Well, Vinagaroon Dye would be one - vinegar and nails.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I have exhausted my browning reagent supply.  But I have a good recipe from Angier's book, and the chemistry prof at our local university is mixing me up the acid solution.  Here's the recipe for anyone who wants an excellent browning solution:

2 1/2 oz Nitric Acid
2 oz Hydrochloric Acid
Add 1 oz iron nails (I use hay wire)
Mix in 30 oz distilled water.

Many years ago, while visiting my buddy in Marysville, BC, I met his next door neighbour. Wendell McLeod, who was a gunsmith tinkerer, and he gave me a vanilla bottle full of this mixture.  What a great browning solution!!  But I ran out, so thankfully, he gave me the recipe.

[rich pierce]

That’s pretty much the Whakon Bay formula IIRC.

[44-henry]

Any idea what the shelf life is on these? I have a good quantity of both acids at work that was left behind from a departing faculty member. Long story short, we were planning on disposing of the acid anyways, but if this stuff lasts awhile it might be easier to just mix up a large batch, particularly the Aquafortis stain which I can use with some of my classes.

[rich pierce]

About a thousand years.

[Hungry Horse]

The vinegaroon benefits greatly from a pre-coating or two of tannic acid solution. The vinegaroon will flash off jet black when heat is applied, and will scare you to death. But, it can be rubbed back with Scotchbrite, to reveal the figure.

  Hungry Horse

[elkhorne]

I finally have the ingredients for a new batch of vinagaroon that someone on here gave me a couple of years ago and need to make it up in the next couple of days. It was using apple cider vinegar and wrought iron. Got some of that from an old fence being torn down and you can see the grain structure in the iron. If my memory is correct, the ALR member that gave this mix said it gave a very rich color. I plan on using just Apple cider vinegar and no water to prevent introducing unknown elements from the water into the mix.
Taylor, the homemade browning solution sounds interesting but in Louisiana I have been unable to find nitric acid to buy and have not even tried hydrochloric. Anyone know a source one could order these from. Tried Granger a couple of years ago but they had to deliver to a business address. Thanks and looking forward to what we can learn.
elkhorne

[Metalshaper]

I work in a water quality lab.. and have shooter friendly management!
with in reason I make anything I need.. at least until I retire..

Respect Always
Metalshaper/Jonathan

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Rich:  before I acquired my McLeod browning solution, Wakhon Bay was my favourite.  Now that you mention it, the colour achieved with both of those browns was very very similar...a plum/purple brown, and fine grained.

[Not English]

I really like the Wahkon Bay formula. One thing I do is to use old drain oil to stop the rusting process. I think the burnt hydrocarbons give it an even darker almost black finish.