Roubo red dye experiment (horse based), conclusion.

I prepared some sample boards to test the dye on different types of wood. I am not sure that all would have been used as furniture wood back in Roubo's days, but these were the types I could find.

From left to right on both pictures, the species are:

Birch plywood, Ash, Elm, Oak (old), Pine, Beech, Larch.

The oak was something I acquired some years ago, I think it is from the 1950'ies, it was intended to be for the back of a chair, hence the hourglass shape.

To complicate things a bit, I tried tested the dye twice.

First test:

This was carried out a little more than a week ago, and the smell of the dye was unpleasant, kind of like the smell when you empty a dry closet for a caravan or an old highway type public rest room. The smell stayed in the workshop for a couple of days, and then it fainted.

The wood didn't take much color once the dye had dried. The Ash looked like it had responded best to the treatment.

Regarding the color, I wouldn't call it red, but it does darken the wood a little bit, but I think the same effect could be had with tea or coffee. But I suspect that horse dung and urine was easier obtainable in those days tan tea and coffee (perhaps the good ole days weren't that good after all?)

First treatment.

Second test:
I was a bit disappointed that the first test didn't produce some blood red or similar colors, so I decided to give it another go. This time I re-poured the liquid from the lower bucket over the rotting dung, to see if perhaps it was too thin a mixture. The first batch was flushed through using the urine sample described in the last post on this subject.
After seeping through, the liquid looked a little darker.
When I poured it into my small jar, I noticed that the smell wasn't nearly as bad as before.
During brushing on, It didn't smell like what it was made of, but more kind of like.. a horse. Not altogether unpleasant, but not something you would want for a cologne.
While the pieces were drying I sniffed again, and there was hardly any smell left.
Therefore I think this is more like what Roubo had in mind.

I applied the stain to the same pieces, and this second treatment produced some darker results, It is not jatoba or mahogany, but clearly a darker type of wood now (or so it seems).
For some reason the elm seems to respond better on one side of the board than on the other, probably the density of the wood is the cause of it. But the rest of the pieces looked OK, I would even call it a moderate success.
To make sure that the darker tone still wouldn't come from one treatment, I applied some dye to another piece of pine, but the color looked like the color in the first test.

Second treatment.

Conclusion:

The red color is not Salem red, but the dye does darken the wood some. I found it necessary to apply the dye twice to get a satisfying result. 

If the dye is re-poured, it does not smell bad nor does it leave a smell behind. If you use the dye too soon, it is not nice..

If you happen to have some horses on hand, it is a cheap and easy way to make a dye.

If you haven't got some horses on hand, it is a lot cheaper to buy the dye you need.

Tool chest for the sea part 4

I decided to keep the lid arrangement very simple, so instead of adding stiffeners that would allow a set of hinges, I made a rather inelegant (ugly) solution by using a piece of elastic cord together with a piece of suede strap. I had to remind myself that the goal wasn't to make a beautiful chest, but to make something to carry and protect some tools to be used on a ship.

Due to the interior dust seal, the chest is remarkably sturdy despite its thin sides and lightweight construction.

The shooting board on the lid turned out pretty well. It is not massive but consists merely of a few strips placed an equal distance apart.

Since I don't plan on building any large pieces of furniture, the size is OK.

I haven't had the time to make a nice tool roll for the chisels and the plane irons, but again the idea was to get some tools to the sea, I can always make the tool roll later.

Regarding the dilemma of whether to bring a rabbet plane or a plow plane, I settled for a grooving plane which fitted just perfect in the chest. It is a Stanley No 248 that Brian Eve gave to me. I haven't tried it, but I am sure it will be perfect for the sea chest.

I will have to find some wood on board for making a project. A pallet wood build is always a nice start.

The tool list has ended as follows:

Mallet

Plane

Scrub iron

Smoothing iron

3 chisels

Grooving plane

Pencil

Small brush for glue.

A small jar of glue (not in the picture)

Sanding cork

Sandpaper

Dozuki saw

Marking gauge

Oil stone for honing

Shooting board

Hardware stock:

Small brass screws

Small headless brads

Small brass nails

Brass hinges (small)

The low tech closing mechanism.

Tools neatly stored in the chest.

The shooting board and one of the Roubo dye test pieces.

A tool chest for the sea part 3

As a reward to myself for working on the indoor trimming of our Velux windows I spent about an hour in the work shop last night working on the tool chest.
The windows were replaced during the roofing project, and I haven't had the time to finish the inside until now. It was more fun doing it last time, because I had everything stripped down, now it is a repair job that requires a lot of fiddling to look nice.

The sides of the chest are a mere 8 mm thick to keep the weight down. I discovered that such a thin board requires very delicate hinges. Normally I would like some fairly stout ones for a tool chest, but that wont be an option with this design.

To stiffen things up, and to keep dust out, I installed an interior dust seal.
The dust seal is made out of thin strips (4 mm) that are slightly beveled on one side (about 5 degrees). These strips are glued onto the lower part of the chest and help holding the lid in place, so the delicate hinges wont be damaged.

The good thing about an interior dust seal is that it will even seal the back of the chest, where the hinges are. I made the lid by sawing of the upper portion of the assembly after it was dry. That way there is a nice fit of the lid.

While the dust seal dried, I started making the shooting board that will go on the lid of the chest. This was a great suggestion by Doug Stowe in a comment for my last blog entry on the subject.

Gustav is turning some spindles for his secret project, he really likes using the lathe and he can feel that his skills are developing.

Attaching the interior dust seal.

Gustav turning a spindle.

The horse dung (and urine) experiment, part 2.

The mare with the fitting French name: "La Loire" obviously got fed up with me always lurking around with a small bucket handy, so she decided to cooperate in the hope of ending this seemingly ongoing experiment.

Without any harm I managed to acquire a full load of horse pee, approximately 1 L (1/4 gallon).

My wife witnessed the "happy moment" so the World shall know that there has been no cheating in this experiment.

In front of a camera I poured the liquid over the dung, and behold.. A reddish liquid soon after emerged in the lower bucket.

Now I'll let it wait for a couple of days more to extract any more liquid,  before testing the stain out on some sample boards.

At a point, I thought that Roubo might have had to use buckets made out of iron, so that the stain was merely rusty water, so that will still be my excuse if it does not work very well on the sample boards. Theoretically Roubo could also have used ceramics or other types of pottery, but I guess that an iron bucket was the common at that time.

Success is just around the corner.

Concentration.

This will probably never be a popular recipe for a stain.

The level of stain is rising in the lower bucket.

A little progress on various projects.

Roubo red stain:
The ecologically sustainable stain is not developing very fast. As a matter of fact it is incredibly slow. I think there is about half a tea spoon of liquid in the lower bucket, so I wont even bother to take a picture of it yet. I have managed to collect some urine from the horses that I have poured over the dung, but it hasn't seeped through yet.
The horses have started to look a bit puzzled though, since I always have a small bucket ready when I am near them. They haven't exactly been super cooperative, but we are slowly getting a bit closer to the goal..

Tool chest for the sea:
I have just finished the shell for the tool box, it is drying as I write. The plan is to separate the upper and the lower part of the case once the glue has dried. I'll see if I remember to take some pictures of it once I get to it.
I did plan to take pictures today, but then suddenly the oil fired boiler for the central heating of our house stopped working, This meant no warm water.. SWMBO generally like it when there is warm water in the tap, so I had to shift the priorities a little. Funny enough, the tool chest didn't come out on top.
I managed to get the thing going again, and I have ordered some spares so I can repair the thing once the parts arrive.
The thrill of typing your credit card details on a web shop is slightly more modest when the 400$ is being spent on a new circulation pump, a safety valve and an automatic air bleeding valve, compared to the thrill I would have felt by ordering e.g. a nice set of chisels.

Yesterday Gustav and I went looking at a new stain manufacturer, and we found one that Gustav really liked, so I'll probably pick it up on Tuesday provided the vet says everything is OK.
Conveniently Gustav preferred the pony with the shortest name which make making a name sign an easy job.
So the name sign is: "Bas".
Another pony we looked at was named: "Drumbad Rathmore Prince", A name sign for that pony would have been quite a task..

Raising the children's workbench

While I am waiting for the stain to start dripping into the lower bucket, there are lots of other projects that need my attention.

I am trying to finish the interior frames around the Velux windows that were changed when we got the new roof on. Regrettably the local lumberyard forgot to place the order for some pine table tops that I was going to use as window sill, so this project is on idle until they arrive.

Last time the Gustav and Asger worked at their workbench, it dawned on me, that they had grown quite a lot since I installed their bench 7 or 8 years ago.
When I installed it, I made a custom base for it, so it could fit the then 4 years old Gustav. The custom base was 10.75" lower than the original.
I didn't throw out the original base though, so it was just a matter of climbing over 300 bales of hay (without falling down) to retrieve the base and climb back over the same 300 bales of hay and bring it into the workshop.
After installing the original base, I figured that I had to move the bench, because there is a wall mounted cabinet that would interfere with the now higher bench, limiting its use.
So the small project expanded into moving my lathe and mounting the workbench in a new position. Some other day, I'll have to shift the tool board so it will be behind the bench again, but for now it is OK.

Regarding the tool chest for the sea, I finished the sharpening of the plane irons, and I tested the plane, and it was better than I had hoped for. I can still be fascinated by the capabilities of a real sharp plane iron.

I decided to try a trick that I was told by a friend regarding wooden hand planes. According to him it was customary practice once, to fill up a new plane with oil, and clamp it to a flat surface. Then the oil would seep into the wood and fill the pores from the inside. That way the friction of the sole of the plane could be reduced. I placed the plane without iron on a piece of glass, filled some oil into the mouth and clamped it down. Some of the oil has already seeped into the end grain, so I think it is working OK. I was informed that traditionally oil was added until it seeped out from around the button on the back of the plane.

The raised workbench in the new position.

The old custom base is in the foreground.

The plane filled with oil and clamped to a piece of glass.

The horse dung experiment

Inspired by the appetizer on Lost Art Press' Roubo book To make as perfect as possible, where a recipe for a stain was given, I decided to try the mentioned recipe.

The stain is made by letting the liquid seep out of horse dung, this should according to the text give a stain that will color wood red.

The text suggested to use two buckets, one perforated placed on top of the other. The dung goes in the top bucket and the liquid/juice should go to the lower one.

I was too cheap to sacrifice a bucket, so I took a flower pot that has already got holes in it. It fits perfectly on top of a smaller bucket I had on hand.

Horse dung is fairly dry, so the text suggested that horse urine could be added on top of the dung to sort of flush the stain into the bucket below.
The collection of the dung itself is straight forward, and not difficult. I am more hesitant to try and collect the urine, it requires that I am ready at the exact moment, and there is a risk of splashing which is not necessarily a good thing..
So for now I'll see if the trick works with the dung alone. Time will tell.

I have prepared a pictorial guide if someone wishes to make the experiment themselves.

The stain manufacturers.

Setup of buckets.

This is what it is all about..

More of it..

Stage 1 is complete.