AcornHouse said:
I hadn't of iodine being used before. I know Potassium Dichromate has a chemical reaction with Mahogany and cherry to darken it similar to years of exposure. (Its also somewhat toxic, so it has to be used with all due protection.) I wonder if there was some chemical interaction in addition to the coloration.
Looks great!
Oh boy. Iodine staining, methyl hydrate, potassium dichromate. Good times. During the early days of aviation all the way to after WWII, maintenance crews and mechanics would use benzene to clean off the grit and grime off of planes. Well several years later, many of these service men developed leukemia. It turned out that benzene is enzymatically altered in the body to mutagenic forms. Without getting too specific, these forms of benzene reacted with the white blood cell's DNA, mutated it, thus developing cancer. Well, there goes all the fun times.
Any body know the difference between methanol (methyl hydrate) and ethanol? Not much...just one little tiny carbon. We drink ethanol. It is in beer, wine, hard liquor. Our body metabolizes it to acetic acid (vinegar) and we just excrete it. Good times. Now what happens if we drink methanol? Our body metabolizes to formic acid and formaldehyde. These, in turn, cause optical nerve damage and we go blind. Damn.....there goes all the good times.
Anybody know what happens when you rub potassium dichromate on wood? Potassium dichromate is an oxidant, kind of like bleach. What most likely happens is that is reacts with various highly colored aromatic molecules remaining in the wood. It oxidizes them, thus changing their spectroscopic properties (i.e. changes how they absorb light, thus changing their color). A couple other fun tidbits is that potassium dichromate is a severe mutagen and highly carcinogenic. Its purchasing and resulting waste is highly controlled in the chemical industry.
My point is that there is a lot of items for sale out there that do a job very well, just like cleaning planes with benzene. What we do not realize is the adverse effects of handling these chemicals improperly and the eventual ramifications to come.
