The walnut hulls in alcohol have been on the magnetic stirrer for about 6 hours with intermittent heat. I’m not terribly impressed with the depth of colour. It looks okay unfiltered on paper but I am not convinced it will be dark enough once it is filtered. We shall see. I’ll give it until the end of the day before I filter.
Sadly , my magnetic stirrer heating element is not thermostatically controlled so I can’t leave it on the heat unattended. I have to keep an eye on it. Makes for a rather boring day. I may concentrate it down after filtering. ideally it will be dark enough that I can just add a few drops to my usual lacquers to tone them down when necessary. I hope it’s worth it. I had high hopes.
Hi, I use Dragons’ blood but it’s very intense. I recently acquired an old book dated 1906 which contains a lot of info. on cleaning, polishing graining and lacquering microscopes. There is also a formula for golden lacquer, one of the ingredients is Spanish annatto, commonly called anato, it’s a natural dye obtained from the seeds of a tree in S.America, the Spanish took it to Europe in the 1700s where it was used as a dye and food colouring (Paella). Dragon’s blood is expensive but anato is dirt cheap and gives a yellow to light orange colouring. Here in Brazil it’s called Urucum, a native indian word for red. You may want to try it out sometime, I’ve tried it and it gives a nice tone to the lacquer.