That Versatile Vinegar!

Do you remember being a kid and doing various "science" experiments in school?

Like the ever popular volcano-with-baking-soda-and-vinegar debacle, or the "tie a chicken bone in a knot" experiment?

(Both were favorites of mine, BTW.) Mine came out better than this one below. 

I'm doing a little experiment that I haven't thought about in ages! One of my students reminded me of it when she posted these projects that she made. (Thanks for the reminder, Ann Marie!) 

Great work, by the way!  She made her own stain, which is absolutely gorgeous!

In college, a interior design professor of mine had my class do all sorts of experiments in wood finishing - we used everything from staining wood with coffee grounds to using toothpaste for repairing small sections of broken wood molding. 

One of the coolest experiments was soaking steel wool in vinegar..again... that versatile vinegar!

I took a piece of steel wool and soaked in vinegar - hopefully in a day or so, this'll be the perfect "grunge" stain that I need for some shelving that I'm building for a customer. The grungier, the better she said... so ...I'm thinking this will do the trick. 

I'll post a photo in a few days of what this stain looks like on wood - I hope it looks as good as Ann Marie's!