vinegar/iron stain test

[jwh1947]

I use mine as a blackener.  Looks perfectly normal to me. 

[Dphariss]

As said above, the vinegar stain is fun and we can imagine that anyone could make it.  There's much fun in imagining ourselves as frontier gunsmiths or self-reliant types who would not buy something they could easily make.  But, aquafortis is documented and vinegar and iron is not.  Even in the most remote areas, gunsmiths apparently were able to purchase the latest locks.  Look at the Appalachian mountain rifles with the latest style, export quality English locks.  And trade goods of all kinds were being distributed to Native Americans hundreds of miles distant to the most remote gunsmith.  So I never bought into the theory that folks "way out back" could not get anything they needed for their business, or that gunsmiths operated so far out on the frontier that there were no settlements and no customers.

For me, gunmaking is a hobby and the things I do, I do for fun.  Trying a vinegar stain is one of those fun things and it doesn't have to be a PC method for me to enjoy trying it.  But like Dan, I want the end result to be very close to the tones found on original rifles.  Adding H2O2 to get the right color after applying vinegar and iron stain kind of takes away the "frontier aura" of a vinegar stain to me, but it sure reddens things up nicely.

Nitric acid was apparently common and if I recall was not very expensive.
I suspect that, being eatable, vinegar was likely used for more important things, perhaps pickles

Dan

[BILL OKLAHOMA CITY]

When using aquafortis stain, is the chatoyancy of the curly maple maintained
 or is it lost?

[LURCHWV@BJS]

  Knowing as an apprentice that you where going to be a gunmaker in the future, could it have been possible that you may have started a couple of gallons of vinegar and iron early so it would be ready when you became a builder?  Adding some fresh as you took from the old?  Maybe two Batches Knowing that it takes time to make.

  Just a thought

     Rich