Important: Safety Warning
This page describes trade processes that use dangerously toxic materials such as cyanide solutions, mercury amalgams, or strong acids. These processes require training, equipment, and precautions far beyond what the text describes.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Silver-Gray Dye for Wood
Expose any quantity of old iron, or, what is better, the borings of gun-barrels, &c., in any en glazed pan, as it will effervesce), put the convenient vessel, and from time to time veneers into a copper or stone trough; fill it sprinkle them with muriatic acid, diluted in rather more than 1/8 with water, and add as 4 times its quantity of water, till they are much of the vitriol and indigo (stirring it very thickly covered with rust; then to every about) as will make a fine blue, which you 6 pounds add 1 gallon of water in which has may know by trying it with a piece of white paper or wood; let the veneers remain till the dye has struck through. The color will be much improved if the solution of indigo in vitriol be kept a few weeks before using it.
The color will also strike better if the veneers be boiled in plain water till completely soaked through, and left for a few hours to dry partially, previous to immersing them in the dye.