It might be that I’m not always being thorough in getting the oil out of the steel wool. Nor do I know why it sometimes doesn’t work well. I haven’t found a cure for this particular failure. If not, you can try just waiting another day or make another batch. It should turn fairly dark in a few minutes. Above, I’m wiping the first iron layer onto tea-saturated walnut.īefore using the vinegar and iron solution, I always test it with a stick of oak or cherry dipped in the solution. In either case the liquid should be quite clear rather than cloudy. I don’t know why it varies, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The solution should be either light gray or light reddish brown. Then I pour it back into the plastic jug. I put a coffee filter in the sieve and slowly pour the solution through it into the quart jar. Either way you go, when the steel wool has all been eaten by the vinegar it is ready to strain. You’ll want a lot of ventilation for this, as the gasses produced are obnoxious. I can sometimes get a working solution in a day by boiling the vinegar and steel wool. If you need faster results you can bring the steel wool and vinegar to a boil, then remove it from the heat. It can take a week or more for the steel wool to dissolve. I don’t know why, but I have had better luck with the Heinz brand. I just wash a fresh pad of #0000 steel wool in soap and hot water to remove the oil and shove it into a plastic quart bottle of Heinz white vinegar. Any iron source will likely work, but the fine filaments of steel wool dissolve faster than anything else I have tried. I get about the same staining results from either, but rust solids build up in the pores from the rusted version. ■ Two small containers (quart jar lids are big enough) or squirt bottlesįor the iron I have used rusty steel wool and clean steel wood. ■ One quart of Heinz white vinegar (in a plastic bottle) Follow up with a bark tea “rinse.” What You’ll Need Soak the wood surface with bark tea, wait until the surface moisture absorbs into the wood, then add the iron solution. The process of ebonizing this way is pretty straightforward. The tea completely eliminated the chalky look and the piece became a deep, coal black.
Topping it off with another coat of the bark tea made all the difference. It was a bit chalky though, and not the intensity I wanted. Using the bark tea first, then adding a solution of vinegar and iron once the wood had dried, I finally started getting close to the effect I was looking for. Making a tea of the bark powder to saturate the wood did a lot to increase the tannic acid content. The materials needed for the process are basic and cheap, but the bark powder needs to be mail-ordered. It worked well for his contemporary chair design, but I was in search of something more natural looking. The effect was an impressively deep black, but with a bluish tint like indelible marker ink. Then he applied a rich iron solution made by soaking rusty nails in water for a few weeks. He had ebonized a chair seat using chemical tannic acid first to saturate the fibers of the wood. I saw an encouraging example of this in a chair by Randy Cochran in Knoxville, Tenn. The trick I have found to getting consistent results is to control the reaction independently without relying on the wood’s varying chemistry. But even within these species there are a lot of variations. Oak is commonly used because of its high tannic acid content, and walnut is a very reliable wood for ebonizing. This limits the wood choices and makes the results unpredictable. The problem with this staining method is that it traditionally relies on the wood having enough tannic acid to react with the iron. I have also found it to be very light-fast. Iron staining, or ebonizing, generally uses a reaction between iron oxide and the natural tannins in wood to create a natural-looking black that is actually created in the fibers of the wood rather than a stain sitting on top. I have read a little bit about it, but most of what I have learned came through experimentation. I have been experimenting with using iron to stain wood for more than 20 years. But for depth and durability, I prefer ebonizing with iron. I have tried ngr (non-grain-raising) stains, aniline dyes, and oil stains and they all have their advantages for specific situations. For whatever reason I decide to ebonize, I prefer to do so naturally. I occasionally like to see black chairs around a particularly striking tabletop or a black frame showcasing woven hickory bark in the back and seat of a chair. But there are occasions when there is already too much of a good thing in one space. For that reason I generally prefer a natural oil finish to just about anything. It’s hard to improve on the natural beauty of wood with all its various hues and grain patterns. Achieve a deep, rich black using household ingredients plus some powder from a South American evergreen.
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