Walnut dye

[scratch]

I am sure this has been here before, but I am in need of a recipe to make walnut dye. I have several pounds of black nuts and have already removed them from the nut, where do I go from there. Thanks Scratch

[red squirrel]

Hi.
Use an iron pot of some sort if you can. The iron acts as a mordant. Boil water with hulls in, and let it steep for a while.
At this point your mixture is done. You can either let it cool, or strain the hulls out when pouring the liquid into another container. I can get 4 or 5 boilings out of the same hulls. I boil them in a (designated for the process) dutch oven I aquired that didnt have a lid, and just dump the contents into a 5 gal bucket that is sitting inside another 5 gal bucket. The first bucket has a crack in the bottom, and allows the liquid to drain into the lower bucket, while catching the hulls. Then I put the hulls back in the dutch oven with fresh water, and make another batch. Some use different methods to strain out the hulls, especially when you have smaller pieces. Use whatever works.

If you dont have an iron pot or something, boil you water and hulls like above, and add steel wool. The rust will take care of your mordant.

Hope this helps.

_________________
"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere & everywhere restrains evil interference"-George Washington

[mvan52]

what do you use to set the dye? Iv'e heard someone say vinegar. Is it correct?

[red squirrel]

A good question. I dont use anything additional to "set the dye", as the iron in the pot acts as its own mordant.

I suggest you use some sort of pot you can designate to the process. Usually you can pick up some kind of cheap pot from a thrift store or something. If you cant obtain an iron pot, use what you have and throw in some steel wool when cooking the walnuts. The rust-iron will provide the mordant for the dye to "stick".

Have had no problems with the above process.
Hope this helps

_________________
"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere & everywhere restrains evil interference"-George Washington

[billh]

Hmmmm, added the steel wool to mine. Its been 2 weeks and all I had was a purple hew.

_________________
Common sense really isn't all that common

[red squirrel]

Somethings not right. Your clothes should dye even without the iron or steel. It just wont stick.

Explain what you did and used, maybe we can figure this out.

_________________
"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere & everywhere restrains evil interference"-George Washington

[billh]

Appreciate the offer, just took an extra bit of time for it to darken up. Starting to look good now!!!

_________________
Common sense really isn't all that common