I know this isn’t a woodworking forum to say, but making amazing woodworking projects with the CNC is always upfront in most minds. But woodworking skills and other tips and tricks is always a good tool to keep in the toolkit when that day comes.
I wanted to touch on a couple of experiments I’ve been trying over the last week to enhance diffrent figured woods.
I’ve always known that old school flintlock gunstock woodworkingers go to is curly maple. To get that vintage/old/rustic look, they use Iron Nitrate as a way and means to get that look. It’s a chemical water-based solution that’s applied and uses heat to release nitric acid that reacts heavily with the chatoyance of the base material. Usually, it turns the curl black and the rest of the gain a deep red, almost turning the wood into a dark redwood like look.
Last week, I ordered some Ferric Nitriate, which is basically another name for Iron Nitrate, but I’m sure there is a chemist out there somewhere that will say the make-up is somewhat diffrent. I played around with diffrent mixtures and did some testing. I landed around 30g per 2 cups of water that really started the reaction that I was looking for. From there, i dilluted diffrent mixtures to test diffrent species of wood like walnut, redwood, curly maple, quilted maple, bigleaf maple burl, and cherry to see diffrent results with diffrent ratio’d mixtures.
Here is the video:
My findings, the Quilted reacted as expected, but refining the application process is in order. where multiple coats with aggressive sanding is in order to have the nitric acid penetrate the chatoyance for darker results while leaving the other grain relatively untouched to avoid the redwood/cherry look.
Cheers everyone!