From: Robkin, Eugene (erobkin@uwc.edu)
Date: 09/12/02-12:06:22 PM Z
For what it's worth.
There is a walnut tree next to my house which drops nuts all over. Each time there is a crop (every other year), the squirrels eat them on my front porch which stains the concrete a deep brown black. By the start of winter the stains will have completely faded.
I don't think it is the alkali. First of all it is very old concrete and I've extracted walnut stain using boiling water, vinegar, and ammonia and the solutions are all similar. Also, the same stains on the sawhorses I leave out also fade.
The extractions don't have a lot of staining power unless concentrated.
The raw walnut juice is a transparent yellow green which rapidly oxidizes to dark brown. It does a terrific staining job on skin by the way which suggests it would do the same for gelatine. I think it is like the indigo reaction or Murex purple but I'm not sure. It does not look like a UV reaction. The few things I've tried to keep the reaction from going on have not worked.
If any of the textile workers or chemists on the list have some suggestions on how to keep the reaction stopped I'd like to hear them. I am not up to building an inert atmosphere processing box.
Thanks.
-----Original Message-----
From: Judy Seigel [mailto:jseigel@panix.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 9:06 PM
To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
Subject: Re: Walnut Stain & selenium???
On Wed, 11 Sep 2002, Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
> No, this is stain produced from soaking walnut hulls in water. There was
> convo on this several months ago, I think in June, so check the archives on
> black walnut and you'll find the recipe.
It's really dandy for home dying sweatshirts and things -- beautiful
color -- but faded in the wash. What that might mean about archivality of
the print.... maybe nothing, since you're not washing the print, but, who
knows?
J.
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