Hi Louise, I haven’t found down here a household cleaning vinegar (6% acidity), so, I’ve replaced it by normal dressing vinegar, which is only 5% acidity. Is this a possible solution? I have it for 2 weeks in the jar and the color is very dark iron, but not getting the orange iron mordant color.. thank you warm regards Adriana
Hi, that all sounds great. The exact strength of vinegar doesn’t matter, some people even use plain water instead but the acidity helps speed up the process. And the colour can vary somewhat, so as long as your mordant is changing colour you know the metal is starting to dissolve and can be used.
Hi Louise. After I have dipped my cotton into the iron mordant and water, it has dried with slight streaks on the old cotton singlet I used. Is it the way I have wrung it out? I dried it in the shade as you explained. Thankoo ! The cotton material didn’t appear to have streaks.
Hi Susan. This can be caused by slightly undissolved sediment in the mordant. If you want to avoid it next time, you could try straining the mordant first. But you may find that the streaks aren’t visible after eco-printing anyway.
7 Comments
Hi Louise, I haven’t found down here a household cleaning vinegar (6% acidity), so, I’ve replaced it by normal dressing vinegar, which is only 5% acidity. Is this a possible solution?
I have it for 2 weeks in the jar and the color is very dark iron, but not getting the orange iron mordant color.. thank you
warm regards Adriana
Hi, that all sounds great. The exact strength of vinegar doesn’t matter, some people even use plain water instead but the acidity helps speed up the process. And the colour can vary somewhat, so as long as your mordant is changing colour you know the metal is starting to dissolve and can be used.
great, thank you very much
Hi Louise. After I have dipped my cotton into the iron mordant and water, it has dried with slight streaks on the old cotton singlet I used. Is it the way I have wrung it out? I dried it in the shade as you explained. Thankoo ! The cotton material didn’t appear to have streaks.
Hi Susan. This can be caused by slightly undissolved sediment in the mordant. If you want to avoid it next time, you could try straining the mordant first. But you may find that the streaks aren’t visible after eco-printing anyway.
Hi Louise. Can I mordant with aluminum acetate and then do the iron bath?
Yes, alum and iron is a wonderful combination! Here’s some experiments
I did a few years ago: https://www.gumnutmagic.com/combining-iron-and-alum-mordants/