Help on dying Birds Eye Maple?

[CR Hurst]

starting a Bow With Birds Eye maple. The brother wants me to dye the limbs a Navy Blue color or a dark blue.  I have heard and read on other posts that RIT dye's work well.  Any Suggestions  :archejavascript:void(0)r2:

[Bradford]

We should string your brother up by his toes for wanting to dye birdseye maple...hehehehehe

I have not used rit, but here it does work.  I used minwax tube dye.. on sugar maple and worked well.  The tube dye is thicker and easier to work on.  I found the minwax in cans was to runny.

[don s]

i have used rit dye to dye hickory. my daughter wanted a purple bow. i just mixed the rit with alcohol. i have also used rit for doing arrow shafts.
don

[Eric Krewson]

Flintlock builders use a stain called aqufortis on maple. Don't know if it is applicable to bow making but the results are stunning in most cases. I have used it on gun stocks with great results. I also recommended it to another bow builder and it turned his maple black. Test strips are a necessity to see how it reacts on your particular piece of wood.

Here is an example of the possible results on birds eye maple.

 

[don s]

wow. that is stunning.
don

[7 Lakes]

Where would one obtain aqufortis?

[7 Lakes]

Aqufortis does not have any web search results.  It's probably the only word I've ever put in with no results.

[monterey]

Aqua Fortis is a mixture of water, nitric acid and some iron dissolved in it to give it a red color.  You can make it but it is tricky to get it right.  I have made it in the past but now find that purchasing ferric nitrate crystals to dissolve in water gives the same results with a lot less fuss and no dangeroud acid around the house.

The stock pictured below was done with AQ made with ferric nitrate crystals.  Not near as nice as Eric's, but mine was probably not near as nice a piece of wood to start with.

 

The wood will need to be neutralized with with a base such as baking powder in water to be sure you don't have a long term reaction with your epoxy.

Here is one source of AQ, although I see that they are presently out of stock.

  AQ source

[vanillabear?]

[Thadbow]

I have bought Aquafortis from "Track Of The Wolf"

[monterey]

Heed what Eric says about testing in advance.  AQ reacts with the chemistry of the wood and the results will be unique to any give piece of wood!

[CR Hurst]

thank you for all the advice I will post pictures once i get the Birds eye dyed

[Eric Krewson]

To use aqufortis, first you saturate the wood with it and let it dry. It will turn your wood pea green but don't get alarmed. After it dries you blush it with a heat source, I use a heat gun, be careful to not char the wood. It doesn't take much heat to blush the stain, your wood will turn dark tan. Still looks kinda' pukey but when you put the finish on the spectacular results pop up.

After you blush the stain it is a good idea neutralize the aqufortis with a dilute lye mixture of a tablespoon of lye in a cup of water. Wipe the lye on, then rinse the wood with water. If you don't neutralize the aqufortis there is a chance it will keep working and your wood will get darker and darker over time.

The above process is probably more than an average bow maker will want to go through but the results are pretty amazing.

Here is a before(left) and after(right) blush picture.

   

[Rutland]

That's some good stuff Eric, be interested to see how it looks on bows.  I just got a recurve out of the oven and am in the process of rasping it down to look like a bow.  Yep, I'm in to making plywood bows now, it's less time consuming with kids and all than self bows.