canadianml1,
If you can get nitric acid, it is extremely easy to handle....as far as putting your eye out you can do that even easier with black powder or a pencil !!! Most junior high students of my generation (I'm nearly 70) could use it in a chemistry class without hurting themselves. Also, nitric acid is no more dangerous than Drano (for clearing drains), lye (for making soap and for the glaze on bagels) or muriatic acid that millions and millions of people dump in their jacuzzi or swimming pool and then jump in nearly naked. And by the way, the muriatic acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve a horse shoe. So, if you can follow extraordinarily simple directions, you can handle nitric acid with complete safety. However, if you buy it, buy "technical grade"....they sell a "reagent grade" but that means that the acid is especially pure for laboratory testing use. I use it for gold refining to keep the end product pure but, in this case, you would be dissolving iron in it so you don't need the extra expense of "reagent" grade acid. Tech grade is a fair amount cheaper.
Nitric can be used diluted to etch steel, copper, brass, and silver and other metals as well as in making the traditional iron nitrate stain. It will also effectively stain wood to a lovely color even without the iron in it if applied and heat blushed in the same manner. It has been around since the 1300s and millions of pounds of it are produced world wide every year. Black powder is FAR more dangerous yet I assume everyone reading this has and uses black powder. If not, they build or own wall ornaments that look like long rifles....
Sorry for the rant, but I am less and less tolerant of people who are afraid of things they know little or nothing about. If all the information people knew about gasoline was what is included in the official MSDS, they wouldn't put 25 gallons of it under their a$$ and drive around town. But they know that however correct the MSDS technically is, they can handle gasoline safely without blowing themselves up or burning down the house......The same is true of the black powder I am assuming we all use safely.
If you want to make the iron nitrate stain the way the non fearful gunsmiths of the past did, PM me and I will send you a copy of the directions from Bill Knight (Mad Monk) and Bill Mende.
