So what with all the grain raising and sanding why bother with water based dyes at all? Seems like a lot of work to get the same color. I'm a newbie to dyes and am in the middle of using some water based WD Lockwood dye and am sort of kicking myself for not just getting the alcohol or oil based stuff. Anyone have any thoughts?
JP
I thought the same thing at first until you see how fast alcohol and the hybrid NGR dyes dry. You have super trouble with lap marks. It makes it almost impossible.
I have found with water you can wash out areas that get too dark, easily blend and even re-do areas. With alcohol it is just a nightmare to try and keep a wet edge as you initially lay it down and recoating over dried areas double darkens, even after just a few seconds. I totally favor water based dyes to the point I won't ever use alcohol.
A few extra considerations with water based dye.
It can wick in and out of seams so watch the piece and do some wipe down in areas where you have butt joints, etc. until you are sure it is dry. Also, be careful with Oak and other high tannin woods that you don't use metalic based snadpaper. You can leave behind tiny grains of metal embedded in the grain and they blacken within minutes of getting wet, giving you some little dots or Birdseye Oak.
Lots of pros wet the piece before laying down water dye to add a level of control. If the wood is wet then it doesn't soak up the color so fast and you have more time to build it to the color you want. They also use this technique when doing sunburst type colors with reds and yellows, like on a strat guitar.
Too Much info? No charge.
The only way I've managed to get alcohol based dyes to work is to mix them with shellac. And even then lap marks are possible if I'm not careful.
But I've heard they work great if sprayed - I dunno, I don't have any spray equipment nor a place to spray.
Yes, adding color via dyes to film finishes is pretty controllable with the right equipment. Known as "toning". It has it's own draw backs. It is used extensively in production furniture where lacquer or poly is toned to give a good even coat of color without the problems of blotching or absorbtion variations. You can use multiple layers of a lighter color to build up to a darker tone. One problem is it is very hard to repair and much care must be taken in laydown to avoid lap marks, such that spraying is really the best method but careful brushing with something like Minwax Ployshades, toned poly, can give great results... sometimes.
I have found that a water-based dye is much more effective when trying to achieve mission-style finishes on quarter-sawn white oak following Jeff Jewitt's recipes...it seems to penetrate much better and provide a deeper color, which surprised me--i expected the opposite.
Not too much info--just right! Thank you for sharing your insight!
Bill
Application is the key. Try using a good conditioner first, then it isn't bad. It also helps a lot to thin the NGRs to make them easier to control.
I never use the water based dyes as they scare me due to their fragility.
For me, I don't wipe, brush or pad any dyes. I always spray them out of my HVLP gun, or my high pressure gun from a 1mm tip. You can shoot a haze on the wood that comes out perfect, no laps, no witness lines, and finishes out with perfect color.
If you do it this way, you will need to spray a coat of your finishing material on the project (brushing/padding will lift off the dye), and the dye color will melt into the finish. This will give you a completely uniform color. This is also the easiest way to use dyes as toners.
I have seen two different instances where the water based toners have faded (Transtint brand). My amigo that makes furniture showed me pictures of a table he made that was from mesquite, and the client wanted the table a bit more red. (Mesquite can be anywhere from pink to brown, and all colors in between). He dyed the top with TT, then she put the large table by the window.
After just six months of catching the light from the window, every nick nack had a shadow on the top that was permanently colored into the wood. The TT dye faded that much in six months. Ouch!
He brought the table to me for ideas. We sanded off the the finish completely on the top (the legs were fine) along with a generous amount of wood. I matched the color with a mix of Behlen's NGR Solalux on some left over planks from the project he had, and re- dyed. When I finished, I shot the whole shebang with a coat of conversion lacquer.
No fading in about 3 years.
I don't use water based because I don't want warranty issues or potential liability.
No such thing as too much information as far as woodworking and finishing go.
Especially if the price is right! ;^)
Robert
In my experience if something is considered "water based" it will also be soluble in alcohols (ethanol, isop). And if something is considered "alcohol based" it will also be soluble in water. If it's already a solution in water or alcohol, you can still dilute with either and nothing 'should' separate. *If by some chance the dye you are using has a very low solubility in alcohol or water it might precipitate when you dilute with the non-optimum solvent. I've never seen this happen.
I use TransTint dyes which are sold as a powder and are soluble in either water or ethanol/isopropyl alcohol. In order to decrease grain raising, I would stick with isopropyl over water (evaporates a little slower than ethanol too). I have never tried this but, you could add a little water to your isopropyl in order to slow drying even more. Isopropyl rubbing alcohol is ~30% water already.
Mark Whittingham wrote: : So what with all the grain raising and sanding why bother with water : based dyes at all? Seems like a lot of work to get the same color. : I'm a newbie to dyes and am in the middle of using some water based WD : Lockwood dye and am sort of kicking myself for not just getting the : alcohol or oil based stuff. Anyone have any thoughts?
The one time I used NGR (about 12 years ago), it raised the grain.
But the main difference is that water-soluble aniline syes are more lightfast than alcohol-soluble ones.
-- Andy Barss
On Fri, 2 Apr 2010 17:12:18 -0700 (PDT), the infamous GarageWoodworks scrawled the following:
Brian, aren't you supposed to use anhydrous isopropyl (99% vs 70%) or denatured alcohol, instead of the watery stuff you get for cuts?
Y'know, the same stuff you use for making shellac.
-- It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. -- Charles Darwin
=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 -- Charles Darwin
Yes, if you have it. I usually just grab what ever is around the house (I don't use shellac).
No matter how it starts out, Mesquite almost always changes to a deep reddish brown with age and exposure to light.
STAIN on Mesquite!? No client could _ever_ talk me into putting stain on Mesquite. _EVER_!
Serves her right for making such a ridiculous request.
Stop right there!
Does this lady have any idea how gorgeous that table would have looked after just six months _without_ that stain? Seriously, this is the first time I've ever heard of anybody staining Mesquite. I know you and your buddy were just doing what the client asked for (and a fine job you did, I'm sure), but damn!
On Fri, 2 Apr 2010 18:12:41 -0600, Andrew Barss wrote (in article ):
Ok, I'm confused here. A number of years ago I settled on water based dye (TransTint) for some white oak ceiling beams. I knew about the fading in sunlight, but since they were always going to be out of the sun.... Anyway, it worked great (still looks the same after 10 years). I avoided the NGR since I had been informed they were difficult to apply and even less light resistant (I sprayed mine). Now I read that the NGR are better in sunlight?
I guess I'll have to revisit the Jewitt site again.
I like the dyes, they make a world of difference when working with blotch prone woods and when trying to get 'clearer' non-pigmented colors. Their big fault is the sunlight fading. This makes them nearly useless to me for anything that sees the sun.
-BR
You are indeed much more highly principled than I am. I have been self employed now for almost 30 years.... I am tired of the fight. For me, no work is being out of a job, so I pick my fights carefully.
The truth actually is that I care more about my personal welfare than their lack of good sense or taste. It's really that simple.
I guess I have been doing this too long. Over the years I have done a lot of unpleasant things, but in my mind I figure that anyone that has a job has done those things as well, it would just be harder for them to see in their job.
My conversations go like this:
"Are you sure you want this piece of wood to be tinted? It will darken over a period of time to a nice reddish glow."
When I ask that question, I hear two responses. Theirs and mine.
Theirs: Yes.
Mine: (Unspoken) Truck payment ($505 a month), truck maintenance, tool expense, CPA tax expense, quarterly report expenses, annual franchise tax, $300-$400 a month in gasoline, commercial address/ office use expense, commercial phone line, expense for company promotions, cell phone bills, my monthly vendor bills, commercial truck (Type III) insurance, computer/office supplies expenses, the slow economy that has killed a lot of custom work, and of course, the unexpected.....
Then there are the personal issues of stuff like food, house payment, and utilities.
I have noticed that not one of my vendors/service providers likes to be paid late.
My SPOKEN response: Are you sure?
Theirs: Yes Robert, we think so.
Mine: OK, I'll submit some samples if you are ready to commit.
I am sensing that you don't TOTALLY support you and yours with a business that sell your craft efforts.... yes?
Well, I would have but the rest of the table would not have matched the top. The particular table in question was refinished for a good friend of mine that builds furniture. He is one of the best craftsman I have ever seen, and is a virtual hermit.
He is a crappy businessman, has no idea how to bid his work, had poor people skills (*really* shy) and loves nothing better than to be alone up all night working in his shop.
The good side of this guy is that he is as honest as the day is long, maybe longer, can absolutely do anything with wood (he just finished relief carving a 6' X 5' mural for a church depicting the settlement of Texas), and he will help anyone with anything to do with wood if he likes you.
We get along because he is sure that good finishing is scientific. Almost all of my background is in carpentry and woodworking of all types, but since he does his own, we don't have anything but a mutual interest there. He got my name years ago because he knew I did a refinish project and made pink mahogany look like American Walnut a few years ago. He was amazed. (It was dyed with a mix I made up of three colors of Behlen's.)
He was fooled about what kind of wood it was. I was completely flattered; this guy is good. Since then I have made it a point to show him some samples when I have a project and let him guess what I did to the wood.
He is so bamboozled by finishing, he thinks I am some kind of guru. I personally think that's hilarious, but again, really flattering coming from him. He gets a LOT of grief from me as he likes to swab Watco on things as his finish. He is so sure that there is so much to learn about finishing that he just won't do it. He is locked down on that subject.
So when he made a mess of the finishing on this table, who would he call?
I am chuckling out loud still as I type this when I read that. I have that little voice inside me now that I hear, but not very long or loud. I like paying my bills waaay too much. Besides, it was for my buddy.
I have sprayed a lot of tint on mesquite to get it all uniform in color. There for a while there was a lot of mesquite entry doors, table tops, etc., being built, and the makers quit trying to match the exact species. Honey mesquite almost looks like Chinaberry to me as it is brownish, and doesn't turn red. It stays brown and looks almost like a Hershey bar.
The Texas Agricultural Department says we have 5 (?) different kinds of mesquite here, and each one is a different color of wood. Combine that with the fact that the local soil conditions will color the wood as well and you can have two pieces of mesquite that will never look the same.
So it depends on what you have for material, and what the client wants.
I am in the piss poor habit of never taking any pictures. I don't know why; I just never have. But the end product was TINTED not stained with dye. It evened out the colors to where the differences in the natural wood were still apparent, but not annoying.
In the end, the final product looked like a very muted Federalist/ brick red. The people were beyond thrilled.
I was paid. Louis was relieved. I got more work. Win/win.
Many years ago I got tired of being the starving artist. It didn't last long with me.
I am NOT trying to sound preachy, here. But at this point I feel like my personal philosophy is that they clients by my mechanical expertise, not my taste buds. If they wind up happy, I get referrals and more business based on my ability to deliver to the client what they wanted.
So that's what I do.
Robert
That's the way I'd feel if I were writing the check--I think you are right on track. I would value your opinion too!
Most of the people who've shown up at my door (none yet in woodworking) always seemed overly concerned with their watch and getting on to the next job. The standards I asked them to meet were a little higher than what they were aiming for (example, the Comcast people came by and started getting ready to drill holes in the floor--I asked "aren't you going to mount an outlet?". One of them to another: "He wants outlets". I asked, well, isn't that the right way?". He said, "Well, mounting outlets is the way to go if you want to 'do it right' ". To borrow a phrase I learned here, sheeeesh!!).
Bill
Let me try again.
I feel like my clients hire me for my mechanical expertise, not my taste buds.
There. That wasn't so hard.
Guess it shows they don't hire me for my typing skills.
Robert
On Fri, 02 Apr 2010 22:35:46 -0500, the infamous Steve Turner scrawled the following:
Substitute the word "wood" for "mesquite" there and you have my strong feelings, too. RBS just don't cut it.
Yeah, but it looks bad for his buddy who did it for her.
Hey, idiots stain cherry and purpleheart, too. Go figure!
-- It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. -- Charles Darwin
On Fri, 2 Apr 2010 20:03:48 -0700 (PDT), the infamous GarageWoodworks scrawled the following:
"Doesn't everyone have gallons of acetone, alcohol, lacquer thinner, and mineral spirits on hand at all times?" he queried in disbelief. We're all DIYers and need solvents for all sorts of stuff every day.
Say no more.
-- It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. -- Charles Darwin
Ugh - Staining Mesquite is like using acid and brushes to take off the patina of 100 years from a bronze figure in a pond - really rich folk. They wanted bright metal - not golden and green.
Mart> >> I have seen two different instances where the water based toners have
You have my sympathy :-).
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