5 Weird Wood Staining Techniques. Natural Wood Coloring Hacks That Really Work.

Do you like staining wood but hate breathing the chemical fumes? Here are five natural wood stains you can find in your kitchen that really work!

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[ottoismydog]

I'm re-staining my desk with coffee, one spill at a time.

[benbrubaker]

Coffee doesn't have any trouble staining my workbench every time I set my cup down.

[Makerjunior]

These staining techniques would be great for woodworking with kids! I could definetly see them used in a workshop/classroom environment. Thanks for teaching us!

[chrisseats]

The coffee and the turmeric looks awesome!

[MariusHornberger]

I unintentionally tried blood...applied with a chisel. Ends up in a nice dark reddish color (only a few dots in my case). I can't recommend it though :)

[Felipera_]

im brazil, se have a plant called urucum. native brazilians used it for painting their bodies. it hás a very red sede that you van easily crush with your fingers and make a paste. it gives wood a very nice strong red color. the scientific name is Bixa orellana, you can try finding that where you live. my grandma has a tree on her yard, she uses it for coloring food.

[guyh.]

Love seeing these! Couple of suggestions. With the coffee, do what I accidentally do. Let it cook a bit longer and concentrate it. Another is with the beets you can use less water and still do the same thing. But instead of washing/cooling down the beets, remove them and keep the boiled water. That has a lot of the tannins (not sure what the color would be called) and use that reserved water when mixing the beet stain. I've never used or heard it being used but carrots could be used the same way. Great video and great options Steve!

[qigong]

Just great.... I got turmeric and beet stains in my Casper mattress.

[MarkLindsayCNC]

RE: Beets. Do be aware that the red will fade when exposed to UV for periods of more than a week or so. There may be a UV protective top coat that can be applied, but I can say from experience that Helmsman Spar Urethane is NOT that topcoat. I dyed a little jewelry box with beets back in 1995, and finished it with spar urethane. It sat on a dresser that happened to get about 4 hours per day of direct sunlight. In about a week, the red had faded to a sickly brownish.

[suit]

you can make walnut stain by your own: you just need to to grind walnut shells and cook them with a few tablespoons of potassium carbonate - for an even darker result you can use the whole unripe (green) nuts, crush them and soak them in denatured alcohol for a few weeks or months

and a very fun stuff is red cabbage - chop & cook it in a little bit of water and after that you can add citric acid or white vinegar to change the color (to a more red tint) or add some sodium bicarbonate to make it blue or green - if you put lye in it (handle with care) you can even make yellow - and if you add very strong acid, you can get red out of it - these natural colors also work great to color easter eggs.

[OdegardOnline]

One of my new favorite stains is white vinegar and steel wool for an aged barn wood appearance. Get a jug of white vinegar, pour out a half cup or so. Suspend some fine steel wool in it for 4-8 hours, then remove it (experiment with the time to get the right color). Paint on the wood and let dry overnight. The iron acetate will react with the tannins in the wood to turn it grey and old looking. Don't leave the steel wool in too long or you'll be staining your wood with rust... Your bottle of stain will keep for a long time. It works best on naturally darker woods like oak with lots of tannins. It takes more coats on lighter woods like pine.

[pferoxtheskeeterguy]

When I was a kid (50 years ago) we used to save up the onion skins (it took quite a bit) and my Grandmother used to boil Easter Eggs with them to color them. After that we would boil down the water slowly until a lot of it was boiled away. My Dad used it for stain a couple of times.

[robinsookdeo]

Hi Steve: Robin from Trinidad, in the Caribbean, love all your videos. Being a disabled person I have learned so much, I have done many of your projects and accomplished all myself, thanks for the inspiration. The turmeric power works well for coloring wood, if you put a pinch of washing detergent in the the turmeric your will be pleasantly surprised with the results.

[jessicarogers]

Yellow is my favorite color and I just got into woodworking. So now I have something to stain all my stuff with thank you so much. You are awesome. 👏👏👏🌹🌹💛💛

[darbypea]

I've used a lot of those natural ingredients as dye before but only for yarn. They make very nice rich yarn dyes. And dying your own yard for projects is very satisfying

[russmartin]

The problem with all of these stains is they are organic, ie made from plants, and as such they tend to fade. So, while you may be saving money now, you may be unhappy later if your stain fades. On the other hand, metallic dyes, made from minerals dug out of the earth, such as iron, will last forever. By the way, I wore Madras print shirts, made in India, in the 60's. They were the rage. When they were new, they were very bright. However, they faded quickly. I learned never to buy clothing made in India.

[kacey_donner]

"I think you could stain an entire dresser with just three beets." =D =D I love it!

[sanjaysami]

I did the turmeric stain. It turned out fantastic. Thanks for the great idea. I was looking for non toxic ideas for my kids bedroom.

[ddutton]

Awesome results! Thanks for the research!

[sullyprudhomme]

I needed to make a pine dowel match a yellow oak chair missing a spindle. I typed in turmeric to stain wood and figured I would get some odd video on woodworking only to find that you, a trusted source, used it! Cool! I liked the tea stain btw. I always like your videos.