How I Rusticate My Pipes.

How do you stain the pipes black after you are done? I have a couple of pipes that could really benefit from this type of rustication and it would be cool to try your method for them. Thanks for sharing!

Youre talking about a paint brush? And what is the brand of leather stain you use?

hand at hard risk of wound my friend pay attention 8O You need a wooden conical small pole to hold the pipe and fix the pole into a vice.The tool seems to be coming from the vietnam war :wink: but seems also to work properly

Maurizio

Been you in Italy?

Great information, Thank You for sharing. ::

Thanks, Buckeye.
I love those two finished pipes you showed.
"Craggy." That's the word. Craggy.

Wow , now I know how they do it . Great post Buckeye .

Now My question has be answered.

You can also make your own black stain Mr. Novelist. Pour some vinegar over a piece of steel wool in a container of your choosing, seal that thing up, and leave it for some time (I've read that 12 hours is sufficient) and let that acetic acid eat that thing. I left mine until there was no more steel wool and just rust coloured vinegar but that's because I kind of forgot about it.

Once you have that you're going to need to introduce some tannins to the briar to get it to turn black as that's what this chemical you've created reacts with and briar loses most of it's tannins in the processing. You can get tannin from home brewing stores I hear but I used a strong brew of gunpowder green tea.

Paint the tea on and let it soak in and dry and then paint the other on and you should see results very quickly. I was astonished at how quick it was and just how black. Here's a Grabow freehand I rusticated with a dremel and stained with this very mixture.

Really remarkable stuff and probably pretty darn great for high contrast staining since this stain will not bleed.