How do YOU make walnut dye?

[mazo kid]

Just curious as to different methods for making dye from walnut husks. I have LOTS of walnut trees and the way I do it is: smash/crush raw husks in a steel 5 gallon bucket, fill with water,let stand a couple of days, then simmer several hours on an electric hotplate. Then drain liquid into gallon milk jugs and put a splash of rubbing alcohol in to help prevent mold. Other friends have said the simmering is unnecessary, just throw whole nuts in a bucket/barrel, etc. Have any of you experimented with different ways to do this? Is a mordant necessary? Is walnut a PC/HC dye? Any info greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[tg]

I used to use the hulls to dye traps, I used a 55gal barrel split lengthways and built a fire under it, I have dyed some cloth and leather in the same soup/differnt pot, I think I tossed in some salt as a mordent,I threw in the whole nut as it was pretty messy trying to seperate the hull from the nut.I had to stirr the cloth/ leather frequently to avoid splotchy, spoty looking finished product, there might be some how to's in the archives on this.

 

[Birddog6]

I took the walnuts in hulls still green & ran over them with the truck to bust open the hulls, then put about 15 of them in a big old soup kettle & cooked it down some on a Coleman stove, let it cool & added 16 of of alcohol. Stirred it, poured it thru cheesecloth & put it in quart plastic bottles.

 

[pichou]

Walnut hulls were the most common commercial brown dye until analyne dyes were introduced in the 1870's.

This is a really handy book:

Circle of the Mechanical Arts, 1813:
http://books.google.com/books?id=6...ver&dq=circle+of+the+mechanical+arts&as_brr=1

Check p. 279+

 

[Maynerd62411]

I've got a big black walnut tree in my front yard and it's starting to drop them . You can have all you want for free. :grin:

 

[Bountyhunter]

I use the green walnuts about this time of year to dye my traps. I have a few old cast iron hog scalding kettles and I put like 10 gallons of walnuts in a kettle and fill with water then bring them up to a boil for a while then put in the traps for about 30 minutes. That soup gets blacker then who dun it. Sometimes I add some green branches from Eastern Red Cedar if I am going to be trapping back in the hills where those trees grow.

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Smash up the green walnut hulls, mix with water, a little salt, I never have boiled or heated my concoction and have never had any problems. I have dyed linen, cotton and wool.

 

[Braskan]

Mazo, my process isn't too differant than yours.

I've had excellent results with picking up the browned walnut hulls from the ground and putting them in an old pillowcase. I've found that the pillowcase works great as it keeps everything contained and there's not as much straining/filtering to do later. When I've got about half the pillowcase full I'll tie it off, grab a bat and pulverize the contents. Once it's good and crushed, I fill an old enamel canning pot about 2/3rds full of rainwater (or distilled) water and drop in the case to soak for a couple of days or longer. After that I put the pot on a hotplate set to low and cook it down to about a 1/3 or more depending on what my end use will be. If I'm making ink I like it more concentrated, for dye I'm not as picky. I add some vinegar and gum arabic to the liquid for ink and rubbing alcohol to the dye to reduce mold. Lastly, I put a coffee filter in a funnel and pour it into various sized glass bottles.

I've read that using a cast iron pot or adding some rusty nails will produce a darker more permanent color (iron tannate compound).

 

[mazo kid]

I've read that using a cast iron pot or adding some rusty nails will produce a darker more permanent color (iron tannate compound).

That's interesting about using a cast iron pot. Keep the ideas coming!

 

[mazo kid]

Walnut hulls were the most common commercial brown dye until analyne dyes were introduced in the 1870's.

This is a really handy book:

Circle of the Mechanical Arts, 1813:
http://books.google.com/books?id=6...ver&dq=circle+of+the+mechanical+arts&as_brr=1

Check p. 279+

Thanks for the link; took a while to download it it (I'm on dial-up) but was worth the wait.

 

[buffcreekforge]

I run a small commercial enterprise at rondies and shows selling blacksmithed and hand-crafted items. I sell black walnut powder at these events. I knock the hulls off the black dry nuts, then run them through a hand meat grinder, producing a coffee-like powder. Mix a bag of my powder with 5 or so gallons of rain water, mix in some rusty nails and salt as a mordant, and you have a beautiful dye.

 

[mazo kid]

I run a small commercial enterprise at rondies and shows selling blacksmithed and hand-crafted items. I sell black walnut powder at these events. I knock the hulls off the black dry nuts, then run them through a hand meat grinder, producing a coffee-like powder. Mix a bag of my powder with 5 or so gallons of rain water, mix in some rusty nails and salt as a mordant, and you have a beautiful dye.

Hmmmmm.... Cast iron pot and rusty nails. I've got those! How much of the ground husks does it take per batch of dye/stain?

I've read that using a cast iron pot or adding some rusty nails will produce a darker more permanent color (iron tannate compound).

Great ideas, walnuts are about done now, but there is a big pile of them in our yard waste area. Thanks for the ideas. Emery

 

[paulvallandigham]

Its the green husk that surround the walnut shell that produces the dye. They do smell, so stay upwind of them. Let them rot and turn dark brown. Then put them in a large bucket of water, cover, and leave them alone for a few weeks. Or you can boil the husks to get the dye out quicker. Most people will reduce the water by half by boiling off the dye water, after removing the husks. The thicker the dye, the darker it colors things when applied. Its difficult to lighten up surface, AFTER the dye has bene applied, but not hard to cut the dye with water before dying. Save the main bottle of dye from all that work, and pour out small amounts to test and thin as needed to get the color you want. Don't worry about getting dye too thin; you can apply more coats of dye to darken the fabic or wood.

 

[buffcreekforge]

I sell the bags of ground husks in 1 1/2 pound lots - add 5 gallons of water (less if you want a more intense color - read that black!)