I wanted to ask whether I can reuse some vinager which was in contact with Iron for aprox 12h for an alum mordant. The thing is I forgot to leave space in the bottle, and put vinager to the top, and realized I needed some space in the morning so took some out of it. I wanted to reuse that vinager for the alum mordant, but I don’t know if it will be contaminated by the iron and is better to not use it (it has some small parts of the metal also, still) or it is no problem. And furthermore, is it very bad if there is contamination of a small part of organic matter (e. g. Little little piece of orange that went inside :))?
Thank you for answering, I’m really looking forward to start eco printing on cotton
Hi Charminia. I personally would just strain the vinegar through some fabric and go ahead with using it for the alum mordant. It is possible that there will be a tiny amount of iron in the alum mordant, depending on how rusty the iron was, but as long as you aren’t concerned with getting completely ‘pure’ results, that doesn’t matter. It’s hard for me to say whether it will even be noticeable when you use the alum mordant, because I don’t know how rusty the iron was or how much you used.
Great, thanks for answering. Also I wanted to ask, I’m observing that the iron mordant isn’t changing its color to orange, but to blackish instead, and it is not overflowing as you said might happen. Is this because of the metal pieces I used? They were oxidated but blacker than orangish. Do you think this mordant will still be useful/strong or should I add more metal with orange parts?
That’s fine, the exact colour doesn’t matter so much. As long as the liquid has changed colour, you know the iron is dissolving and it will work as a mordant.
Another question. I prepared a mordent a year ago with aluminum and the metal did not desintegrate completely. It did loose the metalic color and turned transparent, but the whole vinager looks pretty much the same as in the begining to me, plus there are little pieces of transparent aluminum on the bottom. Any ideas why that is?
This sounds perfect actually. Aluminium is -very- slow to break down. Eventually the transparent pieces will dissolve more, but you can use the mordant as is, being sure to strain the lumps out.
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Hi Louise
I wanted to ask whether I can reuse some vinager which was in contact with Iron for aprox 12h for an alum mordant. The thing is I forgot to leave space in the bottle, and put vinager to the top, and realized I needed some space in the morning so took some out of it. I wanted to reuse that vinager for the alum mordant, but I don’t know if it will be contaminated by the iron and is better to not use it (it has some small parts of the metal also, still) or it is no problem. And furthermore, is it very bad if there is contamination of a small part of organic matter (e. g. Little little piece of orange that went inside :))?
Thank you for answering, I’m really looking forward to start eco printing on cotton
Hi Charminia. I personally would just strain the vinegar through some fabric and go ahead with using it for the alum mordant. It is possible that there will be a tiny amount of iron in the alum mordant, depending on how rusty the iron was, but as long as you aren’t concerned with getting completely ‘pure’ results, that doesn’t matter. It’s hard for me to say whether it will even be noticeable when you use the alum mordant, because I don’t know how rusty the iron was or how much you used.
Great, thanks for answering. Also I wanted to ask, I’m observing that the iron mordant isn’t changing its color to orange, but to blackish instead, and it is not overflowing as you said might happen. Is this because of the metal pieces I used? They were oxidated but blacker than orangish. Do you think this mordant will still be useful/strong or should I add more metal with orange parts?
That’s fine, the exact colour doesn’t matter so much. As long as the liquid has changed colour, you know the iron is dissolving and it will work as a mordant.
Another question. I prepared a mordent a year ago with aluminum and the metal did not desintegrate completely. It did loose the metalic color and turned transparent, but the whole vinager looks pretty much the same as in the begining to me, plus there are little pieces of transparent aluminum on the bottom. Any ideas why that is?
This sounds perfect actually. Aluminium is -very- slow to break down. Eventually the transparent pieces will dissolve more, but you can use the mordant as is, being sure to strain the lumps out.
Awesome! I will definitely try it and see the results, then. Thank you
That is awesome. I thought you’d have to seek out powdered mordants…but you don’t! Great news. Thanks
It is great isn’t it! You can use natural, found or reclaimed materials for pretty much every aspect of eco-printing if you want to.