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Thread: Black Walnut for bark tanning

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    naturalist primitive your_comforting_company's Avatar
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    Default Black Walnut for bark tanning

    This post will be more or less supplemental to the "Utility Leather" thread.

    As I mentioned in another post somewhere, Mr. Irv gave me all the black walnuts I could fit in my truck with tools, etc. still in there. Black walnut husks are extremely valuable to tanners for their high levels of tannic acid, and for the extremely dark brown (almost black) colors they impart to leathers.
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    Think that's enough?

    Okay.. now we have our material, we just have to process it, which is as simple as using a knife to "peel" off the husk.

    This is my youngest son using my favorite knife ever while helping to de-husk a few.
    IT WILL STAIN YOUR HANDS, SO IF YOU DONT WANT BLACK HANDS WEAR GLOVES!
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    So, you are left with a bucketfull of husks, and only a handful of walnuts
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    The nuts can be smashed with a rock, hammer, or whatever and are quite delicious to eat, but I recommend roasting them as they taste better to me.

    The next step is to boil the husks in water. This helps to get the tannins out of the husks. I gathered a few nice long limbs and set up a little tripod. Since I have some chain with a hook on it, it made the most sense to use it to bind the tripod and suspend the bucket all at the same time.
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    Then you just build a fire, and let it cook. The steam has that familiar "bark boiling" smell, with a bit of added spice. I thought it was quite a pleasant odor, if a little on the strong side.
    You'll notice the bricks on top of the husks. They float! To keep the husks in the bucket and still fill it with water, put a weight on top!

    I boil my stuff for about an hour before pouring into another container. This is the first pouring after boiling and already the stain is quite potent!
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    My wife stuck a light colored stick into the bucket as a test to see how long it would take to stain. This is after about a 30 minute soak. The stick was white before soaking...
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    This same method can be used to make wood stain for the home. This is a natural stain and it really puzzles me why manufacturers would add all the toxic stuff into their cans when this obviously works just fine with water.

    Now I have two buckets half full of black walnut tanning liquor, which need to be condensed for storage, and added to the bucket with the tanning skin in it. As before, it is a gradual process of maintaining a certain consistency / concentration of tannic acids around the skin.

    I will thaw out some of the cow hide today, and probably drop it in the solution this evening. I'll keep this thread updated as the process goes along so you'll have an idear what to expect and how long it takes. Of course, deer will be thinner and take less time.

    According to my research, Black Walnut already contains the mordant required to make it colorfast, and it's used as an additive to other dyes for the same reason.

    So, whether you're a woodcrafter, metalworker, or tanner, if you find a black walnut tree, you have found a wonderful resource. Wood stain, Metal dye (for blacking traps or knives), and black leather.
    It also is considered toxic to other plants, so use caution when disposing of the husks!
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    Nice Post YCC !

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    Thanks, I use walnut for staining traps and snares.

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    Very cool. Looking forward to your progress.
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    Another great tut!! I suppose adjusting the amount of tannins you add would control the level of color in the end product. Is that correct?
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    Otaku/ survivalist wannab ravenscar's Avatar
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    supposedly black walnuts grow here, but ive never seen one. plenty of pecans though.
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    Senior Member randyt's Avatar
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    awesome post. I have a couple questions. how much liquid per hide and how many husks per gallon of liquid?

    it's funny this thread came up now, I just picked up a few bags of walnuts recently when I visited my brother in ky.

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    I find that when using walnut dye on fabric it requires a stronger mordant. I ususlly add 1/2 pound of salt to the 5 gal bucket.

    Without the salt the walnut dye simply washes out on the first run throught the washer/dryer.

    With leather this would not be an issue since you do not wash and dry leather.

    One nice feature of walnut dye is that it gives a different intensity on every fabric. You can dump a pair of kaki pants, a linen shirt and a cotten shirt (all of them the same shade of white) into the same vat for the same time and all will come out a different shade.

    We sometimes leave items in a cold soak for several weeks or months.

    Hot dying only takes a few minutes to an hour. We often have a dye vat over the fire for a whole reenactment. Self service dying. Dump what you have in the vat and come back latter and pull it out.

    YCC do you keep a vat out back for constant use? Most hard core reenactors have a back yard dye vat as a permenant fixture in the back yard.
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    Rick. In my limited experience, the color seems to be proportionate in some way to the amount of tannins present. Ultimately you want the center of the hide to take some color which would indicate tannins have penetrated at least that deep. I don't know if there would be a way to make a lighter shade, if that makes sense, but once a hide is "struck through" to the center, you can continue to tan it darker. I think it will be what it will be, because I'm usually so eager to see them I only get "done" and don't keep going hehe.

    Ravenscar. Pecans will work too. I have no idea what color they give. Remember you're only using the husk, not the hull, and not the nut-meat.

    RandyT. (I'll try my best here) Husks:gallon - as many as you can cram in there. boil it, strain it, add more water, and boil them again. You want it to be concentrated.. I'll dilute it when I add the hide and slowly step up the strength.
    Gallons:hides - it will take about 3 gallons to fully submerge a deer hide, I usually end up with a full bucket of weak solution, and a full bucket of strong solution, so I'm not real sure how to answer this.. Start with 3, add till it's full, then move to next stronger. If you wanted to tan 5 deer at a time, I'd use 25 gallon trash cans, starting about half full.
    I cram a metal 5-gallon bucket full of bark (husks, whatever), cover with water, boil, repeat about 4 times, then condense that 2-1/2 buckets worth of liquor down to about half a bucket (super concentrated) and add a little at a time to the hide bucket. Hope that makes sense.. If not, you'll see as the thread goes on
    I'll add a quart or so to a half filled bucket and set the hide in. Wait 10 seconds or so and pull it back out. If it's taking color that fast, it's good, else add a little more and check again.

    KYRS. I'm no reenactor. I am just a hobbyist. I don't have a vat, just some barrels and buckets. I try to work with what I can find, or what gets donated.. like empty buckets lol!
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    Interesting! I'm subbing to see the progress.

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    Senior Member randyt's Avatar
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    thanks for the info, it makes sense or at least I think it does. I've been wanting to try bark tan for quite some time. I need to get after it.

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    YCC, when you say concentrated/condensed, do you boil it further after straining?
    Nice Post.

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    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by your_comforting_company View Post
    KYRS. I'm no reenactor. I am just a hobbyist. I don't have a vat, just some barrels and buckets. I try to work with what I can find, or what gets donated.. like empty buckets lol!
    It's all the same. My hot vat at home is a 5 gallon waterseal bucket. My cold vat is a plastic trash can from Wallmart.

    Big old 30 gallon tc with a good lid. Put about 20 pounds of walnuts in there and about 15 gallons of water. Let it perk in the summer sun for a year or two. Throw in a few rusty nails and some more walnuts now and then. I once forgot a shirt was in there and left it for nearly a month. It took a good color!

    Only the patterns are 200 years old.

    It is only at the historic sites that we use the big iron caldrons.

    We had a beginner throw a brain tanned hide into the hot vat at a site once. Before we could fish it out it was already cooked.
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    naturalist primitive your_comforting_company's Avatar
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    LowKey. yes. I boil it down to remove the excess water for storage.. then I can re-dilute it as I need to use it.

    kyrs, do you have any picture to show color? I'm eager to see what this will look like!

    (now if that hide will just thaw out!!)

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    thank you ycc
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    Otaku/ survivalist wannab ravenscar's Avatar
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    i found a tree site for those without black walnuts http://www.willisorchards.com/produc...e?category=259
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    here we have several different buckets. A tanner can never have enough buckets.
    The top left bucket is about half full of straight hull liquor, the top right bucket is the hulls (notice they are molding already), and the bottom right bucket is straight concentrated liquor. I poured about a third of a bucketful in the tan bucket, and added another 1/3 with water (the bucket is 2/3 full).
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    Remember that cow hide? Well it finally thawed out enough to put in the liquor. This is after about a 10 second stain test. I could not wipe the color off, so it's working!
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    For reference, I didn't do an extraordinary job on the membraning, but this is how quickly the flesh side became dark.
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    About an hour later, I went to check it to see what was going on and this is what I found.
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    This is a VERY thick cow hide, so I have no idea how long it will take to tan through. I will stir it every day till it's done, and add more concentrate as needed. When that bucket is full, I'll pour about half the liquor into another one, and add more concentrate. I'll do a neck check in a few weeks. It might be a while before I add much more to this thread.

    The only thing I'm worried about right now is the temperature. It is unseasonably warm. I know a lot of you are covered in snow right now, but it's hot enough to wear shorts here.. around 80 degrees. That's a prime temp for spoilage. For now I'm moving the bucket under the house where it's much cooler. Hopefully this cold front will push through tonight and I won't have to worry.
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    Excellent posts YCC,Im just now getting back to my "roots" and this is an excellent way to do so...Im just allergic to walnuts and pecans,so I will be using bark.We hav an abundance of urban racoons around here,hopfully they will have only one hole in the forhead area when thay go in the vat..
    (G)

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    This might be a good time to discuss "case hardening", also sometimes called a "tan lock"

    The idea is to slowly move tannins into the middle of the hide. Much like the air filter in your central unit, tannins build up on the outside, like dust. The more tannins that build up the smaller the window for tannins to move deeper into the hide.
    The worst case scenario is to fully tan the outside (grain layer and flesh side) before the middle of the hide is tanned. The problem this causes, is that the hide will forever be succeptible to rot if it ever gets wet. Yes.. even humidity will affect it!

    The idea is to start off with a diluted tanning solution, and slowly increase the strength as the tannins trade places with water in the hide. I believe this process is called osmosis, where materials seek balance with concentrations. Once some tannins have reached the center, more can be added to the bath. As the inside and outside of the hide continue to seek balance, it continues to tan.

    think of it like sifting sand through a screen.. if you pour a whole bucket of sand on the screen at once, only a little falls through. If you slowly pour the sand through the screen, all of it passes through.

    Hopefully I've described this in a way that makes sense.

    Most chemical tans are done with salt's that are relatively small molecules, so this isn't a problem. Natural tannins are quite larger and must be kept a watchful eye on. The one great advantage is that you are using natural materials that will return naturally to the earth. Another advantage is that they are FREE.
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    Man that stuff looks rich. I find it a little ironic that you're concerned about heat and I'm concerned with freezing temps.

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