: After my near fatal epoxy disaster the other day (a few posts down)
: which is now fixed with hopefully no issue, I found some
: aftermath from the cleanup. Apparently some of the vinegar I
: used while cleaning managed to get onto a few spots of my
: unfinished still stapled hull. This vinegar reacted with the
: steel staples and left some grey stains soaked into the wood at
: around 10-12 staples maybe.. I have never heard of this staining
: technique or vinegar reacting with steel so it was kind of
: another shock when I found the spots today. Why do the mistakes
: come when so close to the finish line!?!

: The thing is though.. I kind of like the color of the stains! It's
: kind of a grey weathered wood color.
: Has anyone tried, or do you think it would work, to mix up a batch
: of vinegar/steel wool stain and just stain the whole hull?
: Would the dried vinegar/steel solution react at all with the epoxy?

: Kind of a bummer, but I can live with the couple small spots that
: are already there (assuming I can't remove them), but thought it
: might look cool with a totally grey weathered look. Of course
: I'd test a couple scrap strips first before just doing it..
: Any thoughts?

It's called ebonizing. Bill Hamm started a thread about it a while back here: http://www.kayakforum.com/cgi-bin/Building/index.cgi/md/read/id/199149/sbj/strip-ebonizing/
I've used it on my Guillemot. There are pictures of the result here: http://www.kayakforum.com/cgi-bin/Building/index.cgi/md/read/id/215557/sbj/strip-new-build-guillemot-ikeyak-ii/

I don't think the solution would work through the epoxy. The iron reacts with the tannins in the wood and the epoxy will have sealed the pores. If you read through my build thread, you'll see I also used oxalic acid to try to lighten the wood. It didn't work too well on the natural cedar but one of the used it is prescribed for is to remove stains such as those caused by the iron. I think you'll have some problem getting it through the epoxy, too.

Dwight