Burroughs' Encyclopaedia. How to Stain Wood.

Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information
Barkham Burroughs
1889
The following are recipes for staining wood, which are used in large establishments with great success:

Light Walnut
Dissolve 3 oz. permanganate of potash in six pints of water, and paint the wood twice with the solution. After the solution has been left on the wood for from five to ten minutes, the wood is rinsed, dried, oiled, and finally polished.

Light Mahogany
1 oz. finely cut alkanet  root, 2 ozs. powdered aloe, and 2 ozs. powdered dragon's blood are digested with 26 ozs. of strong spirits of wine in a corked bottle, and left in a moderately warm place for four days. The solution is then filtered off, and the clear filtrate is ready for use. The wood which is to be stained is first passed through nitric acid, then dried, painted over with the alcoholic extract, dried, oiled and polished.

Dark Walnut.
3 ozs. permanganate of potash are dissolved in six pints of water, and the wood is painted twice with this solution. After five minutes the wood is washed, and grained with acetate of iron (the ordinary iron liquor of the dyer) at 20[?] oil and polish as usual.

Gray
1 oz. nitrate of silver is dissolved in 45 ozs. water, and the wood painted twice with the solution; afterwards the wood is submitted to the action of hydrochloric acid, and finally washed with ammonia. It is then dried in a dark place, oiled and polished. This is said to give remarkably good results on beech, pitch pine and poplar.

Black
7 ozs. logwood are boiled with three pints of water, filtered, and the filtrate mixed with a solution containing 1 oz. of sulphate of copper (blue copperas). The mixture is left to clear, and the clear liquor decanted while still hot. The wood is placed in this liquor for twenty-four hours; it is then exposed to the air for twenty-four hours, and afterwards passed through a hot bath of nitrate of iron of 6[?]. If the black, after this treatment, should not be sufficiently developed, the wood has to be passed again through the first logwood bath.