What could you use as a mordant Toddy? Is there something natural available or does it have to be chemical? We've been experimenting with coffee-dying bowls and I'd like the colour to fix and not fade too quickly.
Nicola
The issue with mordants is that they are all potentially toxic.
Generally we use Iron, Copper and Alum....(I'll happily rant about the horrendous pollution caused by tin and chrome if anyone really wants)
If your bowls will be sealed after being dyed then a gentle use of the first three ought not be a problem. Indeed, even the copper (which gives the most beautiful greens on timber) ought to be fine if not being used for liquids afterwards.
Some plants are naturally substantive, like tea and coffee, madder roots and indigo come to mind as particularly good. If your timber is naturally yellow then mild indigo will turn it green, if you use madder on the wood it will give from pale peach through to deep reds, and you can double dye so the red wood into blue will turn plumy purple......you'll never guess I like this stuff
For ease through you could use the acid dyes that come in powder form from Kemtex, if you are interested give Peter Leadbetter a phone
http://www.kemtex.co.uk/
he's very helpful and his products are very good. I rarely use 'chemical' dyes but when I asked for help and advice on them, this is the company I speak to.
I do prefer the natural dyes, I'm using gorse just now, glorious golds that I can turn into rich greens using woad
I like the seasonality of it all too.
When you cut alder the tree 'bleeds', I wonder if there is someway we could fix that colour in the timber using Alum maybe? Iron just makes it black.
I know of woodturner friends who raided my mordants stash and soaked bowls which had been wax designed, like batik, in the liquor. Blacks from iron, bluey greens from copper.
These two are easy to make too; soak offcuts of copper pipe in vinegar to give a pale turquoise coloured liquid or ammonia to give ink blue, or crush iron tablets in hot water to give an iron mordant, or rust down a bit of steel wool in vinegar for the same thing, takes longer though. Needn't cost much to do.
atb,
Toddy
p.s. . I was pulling rhubarb for pudding a couple of hours ago and I wondered too about the use of the leaves for mordant. They give oxalic acid, another toxin, but it can give bright colours, especially blues from berries.
Wood is a cellulose fibre and it really needs an alkaline mordant though, wood ash is the usual for very primitive style linen and hemp dyes, I wonder about using a strong soap solution with the dye liquor on the timber......
