Lye Chemical Color Change


Chestnut

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I think the lesson is that Drew shouldn't be left unsupervised for such long periods of time.

Scary, but the possibilities are endless!

The green oak did not mirror my experiment, but most of the others did. The unfortunate reality of chemical reaction wood coloring is that you don't have control of the stuff already in the wood.

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It's been years since I tried using lye to darken cherry. It works but another caution to warn everybody against is leaving any trace of the lye solution behind. Any stray drop can discolor the next wood on that surface even after it dries if/when it gets re-wetted. The lye solution will also eat holes in your clothes. Many of them didn't appear until after I washed those clothes. 

So keep the area you use it in separated and clean meticulously afterwards. Wear personal protection and wash those clothes separately.

Kudos to Chestnut for a fairly methodical test run on a wide range of scrap. 

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2 hours ago, wdwerker said:

So keep the area you use it in separated and clean meticulously afterwards. Wear personal protection and wash those clothes separately.

Cleaning afterwards needs to be done with an acid. I think all soaps are basic so they just spread around the lye. Acids react with the lye and neutralize it.

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3 hours ago, drzaius said:

So, if vinegar is good for cleaning the lye, then battery acid must be great, right? :wacko:

It's a simple chemical reaction acids and bases react to neutralize each other. A strong acid like that in a battery would have more acid than the base of the lye so you'd have left over acid that you would have to account for.  Man I'm trying to remember back to chemistry i took a long time ago bu i want to say that if you have 500 ml of a solution that has a pH of 9 you'd need an equal amount of a solution with a pH of 5. Not sure what kind of battery your talking about because some batteries use an alkaline solution. If your talking about sulfuric acid it'd be like trying to water a flower pot with a garden hose. I also remember learning that it's better to use a week solution to neutralize something so you don't go too far the other way and don't have to deal with more dangerous chemicals.

21 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

I think the lesson is that Drew shouldn't be left unsupervised for such long periods of time.

Scary, but the possibilities are endless!

The green oak did not mirror my experiment, but most of the others did. The unfortunate reality of chemical reaction wood coloring is that you don't have control of the stuff already in the wood.

It was a big success in my opinion. I found something to do with the maple i have that Megan likes. I'm going to do this staining on maple and be able to use the curly stock i have for something. Also it was fun to put some of the chemistry I've learned to use. I couldn't help but constantly be thinking about fight club.

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