Dyeing a powder horn

[jamesthomas]

 Can you dye a powder horn? I have this half of a powder that I'm making a priming horn out of and I want to get rid of the dark grey verging on black color, I would like to get it white so I can do some scrimshawing. Would bleaching it work?.

[Top Jaw]

Im sure thats been tried before.  Unsuccessfully would be my guess.  You can stain one darker of course, but if you want a lighter scrimmable horn, in my experience it has to be a lighter (or tan) horn from the start. 

That being said, you indicated your horn is gray & black.  I have seen a couple of bison horns that were scrimmed and stained with a reddish pigment in the scrim, and they looked decent.  So, you could dye your horn darker to even out the color, and try a dark red oil based artist paint to fill the scrim.  Now, that's not going to work for a traditional eastern horn, if thats what you had in mind, but would probably be OK for something from the western fur trade era, or later. 

My 2 Cents...... 

[jamesthomas]

 That's what I was afraid of, Oh, well, I'll scrape it down a bit then give it a coat of paste wax to shine it up some.

[J Henry]

  Try This go to,,   thehornersbench.com  they/we do horns there,,,Bleaching  the horn you have is a no,,just won't work.I have done a black horn and scrimed it,use white artist paint to color.. like a negative picture,, If you go to the Hornersbench it is posted on the area of" Scimshaw and Engraving" on the home page..