Cherry and lye

[WKevinD]

I have a great piece of cherry that is close to needing finishes and will probably use lye to color the stock.
I make soap so I have a large quantity of pure undiluted sodium hydroxide (lye).
Any ideas on what dilution I should use?

Kevin

[tallbear]

Kevin

I use 1 teaspoon of lye(red devil) to one pint of water.

Mitch

[45-110]

I just "stained" my new cherry pistol build with spray oven cleaner which is lye. I did a few practice runs on scrap and I am amazed at the beautiful rich color it produced. I left the foam on for 10 mins. wiped it off and then wiped stock down with vinegar. Last week I mixed up powdered lime and water on a test piece, it worked sort of, but did not get the darker rich tone that the oven cleaner produced. The topic has a lot of old discussion on this forum...where I learned of the spray lye trick.
Very pleased indeed.
kw

[WKevinD]

Thanks Mitch, just what i needed.

45-110 the spray on oven cleaner is diluted already and I already have 50 lbs of lye so buying more is out of the question, thanks anyhow.

Kevin

[Robin Henderson]

I've used Dollar General store oven cleaner. I think its $1 a can(more than you need). Worked fine for me.




image hosting for website