Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Primitive Skills => Topic started by: Ranasp on September 16, 2015, 11:55:30 am
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I live by a park that has lots of Black Walnut trees (I have one in my yard too, but this year it's being stingy with the walnuts) so I put on some rubber gloves, grabbed a plastic bag and gathered up some walnuts. There's a serious Black Walnut Fly problem here so any nuts that have fallen to the ground are rotten within a day from fly grubs so I tried finding ones that were freshly landed or just grabbed them off low branches. I dehusked them into an enamelware pot with some water in it, brought it up to a boil, and let it simmer for over an hour. Then I poured it into a cotton cloth to catch all the husk bits, wringing it out to get the most dye and put it into glass bottles. Grabbed a small piece of leather that I tooled and wiped several coats of the dye onto it, turned out pretty nice. The original leather color is below the bird. I like how the tooling captured more of the dye so the marks stand out.
Next time I'll try dehusking into a bag that I'll let sit in a bucket of water for a few days and try cooking that. I'll also try reducing some of the existing dye and maybe adding lampblack to it to see if I can get a nice ink.
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The green hulls give you that green gold color. If you want a deep brown they have to be nasty black.
Boil and let cool for leather.
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Ah good, so putting them in a bucket a few days will do what I thought (make darker dye). These things rot FAST.
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Yeah, us the older, black husks. If possible, leave the piece to be dyed in the soup for quite a while at as high a temp as it can stand.
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Fortunately I don't mind having a variety of shades, maybe I'll make a piece that uses only walnut dye but made in different ways.
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Thats cool. 8)
To get the nuts we would drive over the
walnuts. They bring good money themselves.
The later nuts were best. :P
Zuma
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I've always used the Black nasty ones for making the dye for treating traps. Bob
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If you keep the dye for a while it will mold, I add 50% denatured alcohol to the mix, never have mold and have some walnut stain in my shop that I made at least 10 years ago that still works just fine.
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Eric's right. In a sealed milk bottle works great or freeze it.
Green gives gold, nasty black gives drak brown to black. Dried give a lighter brown.
All depends on how much hulls you use. If you cook it in a cast iron pot it gets darker.
You can't ever use the pot to cook in again though.
It will dye wood, leather, and all natural fibers. Cotton, wool, linen, etc.
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I found this site which mentions scouring for fabric to get a better color http://www.practicalprimitive.com/skillofthemonth/blackwalnutdye.html#stainedhands Also has other great articles regarding primitive skills.
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its easier to cut up the green husks, especialy if they just fell or you plucked them from the tree. dont use water, put the cut up green husks in a old bowl and slowly smash them, then transfer to a blender. add just a tad of vinegar. you want a fine mush. rub that on the leather while you are wearing 2 pairs of rubber gloves. rub it on wood, rub it on whatever you want but do not get it on you unless you want to turn very very dark.Tony
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I imagine that blender wouldn't be any good for whiskey sours after that. ;)
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use a glass mason jar in place of your blender pitcher.Tony
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I do the same as Eric, I usually on use the black nasty ones and cook them down, strain and cook down some more,I keep doing that until I get the color I want and it is clean, makes some really nice stain and by adding the alcohol it will last forever I suppose. :)
Pappy
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I wonder what would happen if you dyed a bow with this and then fumed it with ammonia? With all that tannin it would get very dark, I think.
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Try Pokeberries too, rendered and preserved the same way as walnut hulls. The dye is initially very dark purple, but fades some with sunlight... still nice looking. They're in season right now as well.
I have walnuts dropping right now in the back yard, 30' or less from two big pokeberry bushes ;)