Making Natural Dyes?

[zaynexpetty]

The water level can vary a bit, when I check and refill every couple of days I try to take the water to just over the nuts, but level with or slightly below is okay. Fill the pot FULL with nuts (leave an inch or so of space at the top of the pot), the more nuts you put in the fewer will float as the weight of the nuts on top will keep the lower levels submerged. I've never really experimented with temperature during the soak, I usually just fill a couple of empty kitty litter buckets and set them on the porch, but this being a fermentation/rotting process I would assume that warmer temperatures would speed up the process.

Awesome. Thanks.

The walnuts are 1 week into fermentation. Seems like it is going well so far.

When I go to boil the nuts, you mentioned that you haven't noticed a difference when adding the nuts along with the peeled husks to the dye. Would it be safe to assume that peeling the husks isn't necessary?

Also, I assume that when boiling the husks/nuts for 3+ hours you'll be also boiling off a lot of liquid. Should I be adding water to the boil as needed? Or should I just leave it and wait til the boil produces a somewhat milky texture? Would adding a small amount of steel wool to the boil be at all recommended? The majority of the walnuts I gathered were old and rotten for the most part, not a ton of husk, so I am kind of worried that the dye might not turn out too color/lightfast. There will probably be about a half gallon worth of soak water remaining after removing the nuts from the container.

Zayne

Edited September 8, 2014 by zaynexpetty

[anhurset]

You need to husk the nuts, by removing the husk you expose more surface area and speed up you dying process. I assume that a useable dye could be made without peeling them, but I'd imagine it would at least double, if not triple the boil time. Every recipe I've found says to husk the nuts for best results.

Yes, you'll need to add water to the boil from time to time. I can't really the you how much or how often, if the level looks too low ( less than half the liquid you started with) add water, but don't take it quite up to your original water line, you're wanting the dye thicker than your starting liquid.

It's really hard to screw up this dye, if you cook it too long (as long as you didn't burn it, which is very hard to do) just add water and reheat, if you didn't cook it long enough, throw it back on the stove and cook it some more.

[Oldtoolsniper]

For years I have used whole walnuts to boil and dye traps. It turns them black after they are rusted. The concentrated stuff is called logwood trap dye. It's used as a form of rust presevative and has been used for more than a hundred years as far as my reading has revealed to me. I have also used the leaves from maple trees for brown on traps, I discovered this by accident, leaves in a bucket of water turned the water a golden brown.

If you hold the dye over it molds. I've had some for years in a stainless steel crab pot. I just let the water evaporate and add water when I use it again in the fall. It stains everything it touches to include the grass. It will not completely come back out of jeans either.

I just use whole walnuts. I never tried breaking them up. They do have worms in them here in Iowa if you pick them up on the ground.

Be prepared to for the squirrels, they will find the walnuts unles they are in a container they cannot get into or you submerge them as soon as you gather them. They will shell them for you but they tend to strew the husks all over the yard so it's not really beneficial.

[anhurset]

We get some wormy ones down here at times, mostly when it stays warm a bit later into the year, it's rare though.

I'm sure that the whole, unhusked but would work, but every set of dye instructions I've read have all said to husk them, it takes 15 minutes to do a 5 gallon bucket full so I've seen no reason not to. Logically speaking husking them makes sense, you expose more surface area to the liquid which allows the dye/stain to form faster.

I didn't think about the squirrel issue, the squirrel population in my area is very small, we've got a lot of coyotes and stray cats in this area and it keeps the population down. If you've got squirrel issues then yeah, take the necessary steps to guard against them.

[zaynexpetty]

We get some wormy ones down here at times, mostly when it stays warm a bit later into the year, it's rare though.

I'm sure that the whole, unhusked but would work, but every set of dye instructions I've read have all said to husk them, it takes 15 minutes to do a 5 gallon bucket full so I've seen no reason not to. Logically speaking husking them makes sense, you expose more surface area to the liquid which allows the dye/stain to form faster.

I didn't think about the squirrel issue, the squirrel population in my area is very small, we've got a lot of coyotes and stray cats in this area and it keeps the population down. If you've got squirrel issues then yeah, take the necessary steps to guard against them.

GAH! I just found out that the "black walnuts" that I had been fermenting are, in fact, english walnuts. For some reason the family friend had thought they were black. Back to square one.

[anhurset]

If you haven't trashed the batch yet then I'd keep going, everything from the walnut family will give you some type of color. The color may not be as strong or deep as what you'd get from black walnuts, but you'll get something from it.

[Oldtoolsniper]

I agree. If you haven't trashed it give it a try. I honestly don't know what the trees in my back yard are but they work. I'm betting that the ones you have will work, if your gloves and or hands turn brown when you are handling the husks you should be good to go.

[DavidL]

Has anyone tried oak bark like the way baker leather tans their leather? From what I read so far on the few sources on barker leather is that after removing the hair still in rawhide shape the leather is put into a lightly concentrated bark solution, then progresses a few times onto progressively stronger bark solution mixed with other natural material.

My questions for people that have the knowledge:

How long does the mixture last in a container?

How many uses is it good for?

Can you buy the same rawhide as the tanneries and get it shipped to you?

Does the leather swell up a few ounces after being in the solution for 3 months - year?

Edited September 26, 2014 by DavidL

[Oldtoolsniper]

Tanning leather is not the same as dyeing leather. To completely different processes. Dying changes the leather color and tanning preserves the hide or leather.

[anhurset]

For the most part that is true, however, bark tanning via the pit method (used during the chalcolithic, bronze age and iron age) usually does radically darken the color.