doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DIY Gunsmithing @ doublegunshop.com Alkanet Staining Technique

Not long after my last post here, I made up a batch of red oil consisting of 12 oz of raw linseed oil (Viking brand) and 1.5 teaspoons of food-grade alkanet powder. The mixture been in a jam jar in the window of my shop for just over 6 months, and I have shaken it occasionally to resuspend the powder in solution. It doesn't take long for a relatively thick sludge layer to form on the bottom of the jar, and the color of the oil went dark red fairly quickly as well.

Last night, I decanted the red oil into an separate container, straining it with a paint filter. The resulting oil seemed to be almost entirely free of powder, but not perfectly clear. To increase the purity, I then rigged up a mason jar with a coffee filter and repeated the filtering process.

The result, as far as I can tell, is an extremely dark red oil with minimal residual powder.

My conclusions:
1. With careful decanting and filtration, a red oil can be made without fear of contaminating the oil with significant solids
2. Alkanet powder yields a very dark red oil, and a much shorter dwell time would almost certainly have been fine.
3. Along those same lines, I would use less of the powder in subsequent red oil mixtures. 1.5 tsp to 12 oz seemed to be excessive.

Unfiltered:


Carefully decanting through a paint filter:


The sludge left over after decanting:


Not much alkanet powder in the filter (not fine enough?):


Coffee Filter on a Mason Jar:





The final product:


After 24 hours or so, almost no powder has settled to the bottom: