Question about coloring wood

[NoOne N Particular]

Hi all,

I want to dye some strips of wood to use as filler material for different things I am turning on a lathe. I am trying to get very bright colors like red, blue, green, yellow, and even maybe white. I have tried a few things but so far have not had much luck doing what I want. I need good color penetration of 1/8" (but I would settle for even 1/16") in different types of wood including some mahogany, oak, perhaps some maple, etc.

I have tried a few things like some water colors, a couple of different dyes and stains, and a couple of inks, but nothing that is specifically designed for coloring wood. The thing that has worked best so far is only with poplar. I boiled a piece that was about 3/4" thick in good ol Rit fabric dye. Boiled it for about 30 min, and then let it soak over night. The red color did manage to penetrate all the way to the center of the wood, but it kept getting lighter in color as I turned it down. By the time I got to the core, the color was just a very pale and spotty red. I also had a small piece of mahogany, oak, and maple burl in the same pot. A few swipes with some sand paper and almost all of the color was gone. Maybe 1/64" penetration.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Wayne

[dale martin]

There are some water based "aniline" dyes in bright colors. I'm not sure about the depth of penetration of the dyes. You might try looking for the dyes at woodworking supply websites such as: Woodworkers Supply, Woodcraft, Lee Valley, Highland Hardware, etc. and continue with the experiments.

Dale

[Andrew Barss]

dale martin wrote: : There are some water based "aniline" dyes in bright colors. I'm not : sure about the depth of penetration of the dyes. You might try looking : for the dyes at woodworking supply websites such as: Woodworkers : Supply, Woodcraft, Lee Valley, Highland Hardware, etc. and continue : with the experiments.

: Dale

Another thing to try is dyed veneers -- check with the online vendors. These are cut thicker than typical veneers, and are dyed through.

Try Certainly Wood, B&B Rare Hardwoods, and Flamingo Veneer, for starters --

-- Andy Barss

[SonomaProducts.com]

I'm not sure you'll find a workable solution (pun) for this. Other than surface coloring, any method will have spotty (pun) results at best for penetrated color. Most woods will be almost none and some softer woods will take up some color but as you saw with the Poplar, not very well.

The > Hi all,

[Pat Barber]

Like these ???

Hi all,

[NoOne N Particular]

I did check out the dyes at Rockler and Woodcraft websites, and at $10 per ounce and up (WAY up), it was a little pricey just to buy one just for an experiment. But thanks for the input.

Wayne

[NoOne N Particular]

I'll look into those and see if I can Google some more sources.

Wayne

[NoOne N Particular]

Pens will probably be my initial application for the colored veneers. I am thinking of something like Dymonwood, but making my own colors and patterns. The problem is that I may want it to do other things as well later on. After all, who could possibly resist buying a black salt and pepper set with red, and yellow colored bands, or a purple colored bedroom set with chartreuse, yellow and international orange veneers running through it? I have thought of alternative materials but really kinda wanted to stick with "all wood" if possible, except for some non-ferrous metals like copper and brass, etc. But it is looking like I may have to use them anyway.

Thanks for the reply

Wayne

[Toller]

I was sure this was an easy issue; if you put enough oil on red oak end grain it will come out the other side, so dying it though should be easy enough.

[Patriarch]

"NoOne N Particular" wrote in news:%QHDh.1122$ [e-mail]:

If what you need is something for an experiment, then you need to find a buddy who has some on his shelf. For your experiment, you're going to need only a couple of drops. Certainly no more than 1/4 of the bottle.

I, for example, have maybe 6 bottles of the stuff on my shelf, and found that many of the dye experiments I tried taught me not to use it that way, or on that kind of wood, or any numbers of 'interesting options'.

Dye stains, in my shop, are now 'toners' for shellac, for the most part.

YMMV.

Patriarch

[Patriarch]

"Toller" wrote in news:AEIDh.3448$ [e-mail]:

Nope. Doesn't really work that way. The wood isn't that predictable. At least not for me.

YMMV. Your red oak probably does.

Patriarch

[Stewart Schooley]

Wayne,

They say that memory is the second thing to go and right now I'm only getting a vague recollection of a discussion from some time back about coloring wood for pen turning.

It seems to me that the guy was soaking his wood in polyurethane. I think the idea was that it soaked into and "plasticized " the wood. I suggested he add artist's oil colors to color the poly. I recall that I mentioned he could use gold and other metallic colors this way.

Does soaking the wood in polyurethane ring a bell, or am I off base?

Stewart

[Andrew Barss]

: They say that memory is the second thing to go and right now I'm only : getting a vague recollection of a discussion from some time back about : coloring wood for pen turning.

: It seems to me that the guy was soaking his wood in polyurethane. I : think the idea was that it soaked into and "plasticized " the wood. I : suggested he add artist's oil colors to color the poly. I recall that I : mentioned he could use gold and other metallic colors this way.

: Does soaking the wood in polyurethane ring a bell, or am I off base?

Doesn't ring a bell for me, but it occurs to me (following up on your idea) that

sells a thin penetrating epoxy which they claim penetrates quite far into endgrain (like several inches, for whatever they tested). I wonder if it could be used as a dye carrier -- since regular epoxy is dyable with aniline dyes, I would think it could be.

-- Andy Barss

[Bill in Detroit]

Wayne, THIN veneers can be dyed and stacked. The dye passes through the thin dimension. Dymondwood alternates colors but there is no reason why you couldn't stack several of the same color to get the thickness you want.

Bill

[Stewart Schooley]

I was thinking about this some more and it seems to me the guy had a vacuum gismo that screwed on a jar. The vacuum aided the absobtion of the poly, IIRC.

Ding, Dong, anyone?

Stewart