Want to dye maple jet black. Vinegar / iron solution gives a nice, silver grey, but not black. Water-soluble, also warps wood more than alcohol or oil-based, prefer not to use water-based.
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13 years ago
Dye preferences?
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13 years ago
Since you are wanting "jet black", I assume you mean an opaque colorant.
Why don't you use black lacquer? It isn't water based, works well, and will be completely black with just a couple of coats.
If you don't like the sheen, then you can burnish it to a satin with a little elbow grease.
Then of course, there is always a super high quality paint that mimics lacquer in appearance but will be available over the counter in the sheen you want.
Robert
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13 years ago
Since you are wanting "jet black", I assume you mean an opaque colorant.
Why don't you use black lacquer? It isn't water based, works well, and will be completely black with just a couple of coats.
[...]He is right. IME it is not possible to totally blacken wood by stain/dye, you will see the grain no matter how many coats you apply. You need to use a black laquer.
Tim W
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13 years ago
How much maple? Marking pens get stuff nice and black, so does India ink but I don't know if it comes in other than a water base.
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13 years ago
Try black leather (or shoe) dye. A few hours after it dries, wipe it with a soft cloth. A coat of oil or varnish will seal the color in the wood.
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13 years ago
I'll second the India ink, I have used it very successfully.
Just make sure you wear nytril gloves whenever dy> Father Haskell wrote:
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13 years ago
Only the OP knows, but I assume he wants the grain to show through. If not all he has to do is buy some black paint and I doubt he'd post here if that were the case.
I'd use black alcohol compatible dye mixed into shellac. If I had spray equipment I'd probably just mix the dye with the proper amount of alcohol and skip the shellac, but I've never had any luck applying alcohol based dye directly by hand - it dries too fast.
On a really large piece even shellac is too quick-drying. I'd mix water based dye into a water based finish.
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13 years ago
Father Haskell wrote: : Want to dye maple jet black. Vinegar / iron solution gives a nice, : silver grey, but not black. Water-soluble, also warps wood more : than alcohol or oil-based, prefer not to use water-based.
Indian ink will give you a deep black, and not obscure the grain.
-- Andy Barss
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13 years ago
[...snip...]
FWIW, you can add a retarder, or just dissolve flakes into 99% isopropyl, to extend the working time.
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13 years ago
Want the grain to be visible if you look *very* close. Keeps it interesting.
French polish on my last guitar neck was like glass. This one will be even shinier.
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13 years ago
There was a time you could buy a quart / liter of India Ink at an art supply store. Pen and ink types like lots of ink.
There are also block ink - dehydrated.
Mart> I'll second the India ink, I have used it very successfully.
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13 years ago
You still can at the right store. Dick Blick's lists their store brand India Ink for $11.99 a quart and Speedball for 14.99. And Sennelier for about four times as much.
Blick has Japanese block ink but not dried India.
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13 years ago
Water won't warp your piece as bad as you think. I had a similar problem when I wanted to dye poplar black without the green bleeding through.
I mixed a small container of Transfast black dye into 1 (or 1-1/4) cups of water (and yes I know the directions say it makes a lot more than that). Then added 1 small container of india ink. Put it in a squirt bottle and tried it out. Added another bottle of india ink and it worked well. The only draw back is that it will leave a white residue on the surface that you can wipe off. Then I followed with 2 coats of ebony stain. Coated it with 2 coats of MW satin poly. I will warn you that if you spill anything on the finish before the poly is applied, the black will lift some and you can't fix it. It will give you a nice jet black finish.
The only other thing might be multiple coats of Minwax Ebony stain then followed with a couple of coats of a tinted shellac. Or you might want to experiment with:
Ink jet printer ink (the refill bottles) RIT dyes ( for clothing) India ink
The only problem is that maple doesn't contain very much tannin and that is why the vinegar/steel wool didn't work very well. if you DAGS "tannin tea" or "ebonizing maple" you will get pointed more on what to do.
Allen
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13 years ago
Another easily accessible cheap solution is ink jet ink. Black ink comes in both dye and pigment form and is available for about $5 for 4 ounces.
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13 years ago
Early in 2010 there was a discussion on here about ebonizing wood, triggered by an article by Brian Boggs in Popular Woodworking. It involved using quebracho extract (used in the taxidermy field) to add tannin to the wood, and then applying vinegar/iron solution. I bought the extract, tried out the recipe on maple, with stunning results. It took 2 or 3 cycles of the application, but the result was really black maple, similar to coal.
cheers ...
brian
Stillwater Lake, Nova Scotia