I kept a bottle of syrian rue extract in my rucksack, in the same compartment where I keep my vapor genie. Both my rucksack and my pipe are now heavily stained red after the bottle opened and the mean, vile stuff spilled everywhere. (mean & vile only in its effects on fabric and vapor genies)

I've added a picture of the pipe below.

I do like the color and now I'd like to paint the whole thing but I can't figure out how to do it.

I tried applying wet extract, I tried applying basic and acid solutions from an extraction, I tried sanding the lacquer (sp?) off before applying but nothing seems to really work.

I wonder if anyone has any experience painting with rue/ harmalas?

I think it looks perfect just like that

Edit: But no I don't have any experience with painting/dying with it.

Get a blacklight for when you blast off so the pipe is illuminous before you launch

Keep in mind that there is a lacquer on the outside of the vaporgenie so that will prevent a lot of the dye from getting through. A bit of sandpaper or carving in the areas you would like to paint would go a long way.

As far as how to make it a dye, it seems to me that adding it to an oil base would be the best way. I would assume that the manske'd harmala hcl needles would give the brightest red but I'm not sure how soluble they are in oil or which oil would be the best.

Another alternative would be to add the freebase to some methanol and try painting with that. The methanol might have some adverse effects on the finish though, so you might want to spot test first.

This is a cool idea and please keep us posted on how it turns out.

Interesting yes.
This is some wikipedia I found about dye-ing:

They did not said seeds, but it might be same process.

Also: some paper on dye-ing

Harmala salts are very stable and stay yellow and very water soluble a looong time. Over the years that I've worked with them, I've not seen any decay happen.

Harmala freebase on the other hand, can under some circumstances turn into a bright red compound. I have had red stains appear within a day when oven drying harmala freebase that was still wet with strongly alkaline water. An oven mitt turned bright red, but after washing in a washing machine, the brightness of the red color is gone and orange-brown stains remain. Red stains on a breadboard are still as bright as when they first appeared.

I have also seen the red color appear after longer timespans on ziplock bags containing the freebase powder.

Then again, I also have a closed bottle with harmala freebase in more or less neutral water that has not changed color at all, even after standing for more than a year.

From my observations, I guess that the red color appears as a result of some kind of oxidation of freebase harmala alkaloids, possibly catalyzed by moisture and base.

Thanks pitubo, my harmala freebase also turned red unlike many here, glad to read it is a normal thing to happen. It might be dependent on the conditions it was created as you say, sort of base used, washing style,...

Thanks for the replies everyone, they're very helpful, although I still don't understand the mechanism at work. I did some coloring tests, none of which turned red so it's very frustrating to see the stains on the cloth that I used in my latest extraction turned red as blood... (which BTW @DreaMTripper doesn't glow in blacklight but turns a deep-earthy red)

I've sanded the lacquer off the stem of my VG, the head is good as it is. I'll experiment some further and if anything meaningful happens I'll let you know.

I've attached a picture of my coloring tests in case anyone is interested. It's really crappy but the colors are accurate.

I found an old french book (Traite des matieres colorantes comprenant leurs applications a la teinture 1867) about dying with peganum harmalas :
- harmala red is Harmalas freebase oxydized. Seeds+10g water+5g ammoniac are left 4 days exposed to the air and pulled with ethanol
- dying : soak the coton in ethanol+water+harmalas red (between 30-40°C to fix the color)


You could try harmalas+H2O2+ethanol

Merçi beaucoup, DansMaTete, I'm going to try that out straight away!

I am soaking seeds in IPA, dipped a piece of chalk in it, it turned yellow. Then I basified some of the IPA with a sodium carbonate solution, and dipped the other end of the chalk stick in it, it turned orangy red. (picture)

I'm also soaking some seeds in a basic solution, will pull with alcohol in a few days.

A couple of months later the pipe has become quite red, though still not as deeply and uniformly as I'd want. Also I've sanded a bit too much here and there, leaving ugly spots.
I'll repeat the proces of putting a lot of basified alcoholic rue solution on it and see what happens.

Noticed: some spoiled freebase rue harmalas on a tablecloth turn into very intense red stains, not yellow, without any alkohol interference.

Alcohol is not needed, it s just a solvent.

I'm used to take harmalas sublingualy (wraped in some tea bag paper and sticked under my upper lip) and vaporize some DMT for 1 or 2 hours. After a while, i cant stand the harmalas taste anymore so i drop the paper, as i'm tripping it's anywhere, most of the time on my bed sheets and there are some red orangish stain all over now.

If I remember correctly, harmine and harmaline produce different color dyes, if you care to separate them. I think it was harmaline that was a bright neon yellow, and harmine was a deep brownish-red.

I like the idea of using a UV light to make the alkaloids in the pipe fluoresce.

So going off your original post it was dry harmala freebase which caused the original stain?

I like the look of this, I would treat it with a diluted pale oil like walnut or stand oil. Slow drying, but worth it. Then buff the devil out of it.

I do like a sexy bit bit of naturally treated wood

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