stock stain

[whitebear]

I was talking with a person today and he said that he had been putting battery acid in a battery that was on a piece of pine, he spilled some and that it had turned the wood a pretty brown.  Anyone had experience with sulfuric acid as a wood stain?

[A.Merrill]

    Give it a try on some scrap wood and let us know how it came out.  Al

[Dale Campbell]

Sulfuric will char the wood, or paper or any cellulose. I've never tried it as a stain, but charred a lot of paper and wood in chem lab. Try it diluted to see what happens. And be careful.  It will char the carbon compounds in your skin just the same way...

[B.Habermehl]

I often thought to try some of the mine acid-iron rusty water that comes out of the ground near work as a stain. Just never got arount to it. Its sulfuric acid water with iron. Stains the creek bottoms red-yellow. As for wood?

bjh

[whitebear]

I often thought to try some of the mine acid-iron rusty water that comes out of the ground near work as a stain. Just never got arount to it. Its sulfuric acid water with iron. Stains the creek bottoms red-yellow. As for wood?

bjh

Try it and let us know you might make a million selling that water!

[T*O*F]

Almost all the traditional stains used by people here are acid-based or acidic.  If the acid is not depleted in the process, it will char the wood in varying degrees..soft wood darker...hard wood lighter.  It's how you bring out the curl or figure thru the differences in wood texture.
Aqua fortis....nitric acid
Vinegar and iron...acetic acid
Chromium trioxide.....chromic acid
Muriatic and sulfuric will both work as will other strong acidic compounds.  It's just a matter of experimentation with concentration and technique.

[Eric Laird]

A while ago  - probably 10 years or more - I used some sulfuric acid I got from  plumber friend to mix up some stain. It seems to me it created more of a yellowish color on the scrap I tried. The darker stripes were more blackish. I don't remember what the source of iron was that I used but it was likely either steel wool or maybe some finish nails as that is likely what I would have had laying around back in those days. I don't know if that might have affected the coloration. Either way, it wasn't the color I was looking for so I never pursued it any further.
Eric