Making Your Own Walnut Stain
George VondriskaMaster woodworker George Vondriska shows you how to make your own homemade walnut stain for finishing your woodworking projects. A WoodWorkers Guild of America (WWGOA) original video.
You might not think this is very exciting putting walnut stain on this oak board, but what's really neat about this is I made the stain and I'm going to talk you through what you need to do if you want to make your own walnut stain. What I did is, I'm lucky enough to have some walnut trees right here at my place. So in the fall, when the walnuts are ready, I gathered them up. Notice I have rubber gloves on, because what you don't want is to get walnut stain on your hands. It will be on there a long time.
It's a very effective stain. So, wearing rubber gloves, gather up the walnuts. You want to put about 20 nuts into a cheese cloth bag like this. Then I'm going to gather up the corners, I'm making like a big tea bag here, with the walnuts in there. Now, the batch I had here was done when the walnuts were absolutely fresh, they were right off the tree.
These are a little bit drier but this is still going to work. Once I've got that gathered up then I want to keep them in the bag. I'm going to pinch that closed. Now here's the recipe that I used. I used a garage sale stock pot, don't go and get your best kettle out of the house, and put about two gallons of water in there.
Then what I did is, I brought that two gallons of water to a boil. Once it was boiling, I shut it off, and dropped my tea bag full of walnuts in there. I let that sit overnight. Now, the next morning, what I had, I had walnut stain, but it was very, very weak. It was about the color of tea, and I wanted something darker than that.
So, leaving that bag in, I brought it to a boil again, and then I watched it. And actually what I did was, I took a board, I took a piece of scrap oak and I dipped it into the liquid every once in a while to see how dark it was when it came out. When it got to the darkness I wanted, when it got to this consistency, I shut off the heat, took the tea bag out, and I was done. So, what you can do is you can control the darkness of your final mix just by boiling that down. I ended up reducing it from a two gallon initial mix to about one gallon, so reduced it by about half.
Once you've got that, let it cool down and you can store it in a jar like this. Now storing means you've got to keep this in a refrigerator. What you just made, you made walnut juice is what you did. So, like any other natural product, if this just sits on the shelf in your shop, it's going to go bad on you. So, you do want to date it so that you know when you made it, and you want to keep it in a refrigerator.
When you apply it, this is a water-based stain that you made, so, especially on oak like this, it's going to raise the grain as it dries. Generally, after the first coat you're going to have to do just a little bit of scuffing to knock that fuzz, those whiskers back down. And after that, it's not too bad. It doesn't do too much more grain-raising. Now, you can see the difference here.
This was a raw board that I was just brushing the stain onto. This board, in order to get this depth, this darkness to it, has got about six coats of walnut stain on there. So, it's not quite as dark. It doesn't have anywhere near the amount of pigment in it that, or dye that a commercially-made walnut stain might. So if you want depth of color, you got to build it up.
But I think it's really, really neat that we can go completely natural with a product like this making your very own walnut stain from walnut husks. Give it a try, see how the recipe works for you.
Any recommendations for a homemade wood conditioner and sealer after using the walnut stain? Thanks!
Instead of refrigerating the stain, is it possible to hot water can it (like you do vegetables), and keep it on the shelf?
Instead of refrigeration and since the stain is organic, have you considered a canning process? Using pint jars (not sure how much stain you use at one time,) process like any food product (put filled, sealed jars in a water bath for 10-20 minutes, remove, let cool and label.) I would think that the stain could last for years.
It should be able to freeze dry it
Ok ,but where do I get the walnuts? I would use burnt umber colour paste, or better still transparent iron oxide stainers
Hi there! I'm just getting acquainted with making natural finishes and was curious if there was a differentiation in making a dye using a black walnut hull powder? I'm assuming it's similar, as far as adding and diluting, but do you think you'd have to boil it as well since it's already a powder? Thanks so much!
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got chest nut and black walnut I know black walnut but can it be used on chestnuts?
Add about 1 part household ammonia to the cooled liquid to extract even more color and help preserve the stain better. The same can be done with leaves of various trees and/or bushes. 3 parts water to 1 part household ammonia and soak the leaves from walnut, birch and other trees or bushes. Soak for 1-7 days until the color suits you, then take out the leaves. Vent the lid when you take the stain out of the refrigerator, especially if you shop is not air conditioned on a hot day. Too much temperature change in an air-tight container can produce explosive results.Once you have the raw, water-based stains (dyes) you can begin mixing and diluting them to obtain the color you desire.
I noticed that the make date on the lid was 10/5/09. Does it really last over 4 yrs in the refrigerator?? If not, how long do you think it will last?