How To Dye Wood

[paulkane1]

I'm this has been asked before,I would like to dye Wood,about,12inchx8inchx1inch thick softwood ,I want to make Bandsaw Boxes,with layers of various Light colored,ie,Blue,Red,Yellow,pastel colours ,What is the procedure to achieve this?What do I need ?Preesure Pot etc?Best place to buy Dyes etc? All help appreciated.

Yours Kindly Paul

 

[MattRoberts]

Softwood is a bit of a mare to dye because it's so absorbant, which tends to give very blotchy results. Whilst I'm no expert, I would recommend sanding thoroughly to 240 grit min, and then using a sanding sealer like Liberon

 

[Racers]

You can get coloured plywood https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=colou ... 60&bih=608 Can't seem to find a supplier.

Pete

 

[custard]

Matt's right, softwood is inherently blotchy. There isn't a cheap and simple solution, but you can at least improve matters by sanding through to much finer grits than you normally would, in my experience (on similarly problematic hardwoods like Cherry rather than softwoods) you have to go to at least 400 grit before it makes a difference, and 600 grit is better still. You won't cure the problem, but you'll certainly take a noticeable step in the right direction.

As to the choice of dye, a water based aniline dye is probably your best bet, the only downside is that aniline colours aren't very light fast, but if you don't display it in direct sunlight you'll be okay. Don't be misled by spirit dyes claiming to be lightfast, they offer a minuscule advantage over water based in terms of fade resistance, but are many, many times harder to apply well because the wet edge dries almost instantly.

One final point, you'll never get a dye to penetrate more than about 1/2 mill below the surface. Even sophisticated procedures like dying in a vacuum bag won't give you an even and deep penetration. They deliver a deeper, but super blotchy penetration. So make the component then dye afterwards.

Good luck!

 

[morturn]

Yep, softwood can be a right pain, but If this were me I would go for Fiddes Spirit Soluble Powdered Stains. You mix them with meth’s and are available in a lots of colours from Bismark Brown, Oak, Mahogany, Walnut, Red, Green, Blue, Black and Yellow.

A small 125g pot will make gallons.

You get them from AG Woodcare
http://www.agwoodcare.co.uk/Item/fiddes ... der_stains

 

[MattRoberts]

If you can find a gel stain, they're much better at giving an even come and reducing blotchyness

 

[ED65]

Paul, you can get deep penetration of dyes into wood (as used to make coloured turning blanks like these) either using vacuum or pressure, but you need a hard vacuum or very high pressure so it's not something easily or cheaply replicated by the home craftsman.

There's something simpler (and safer!) than you might want to experiment with, at worst you'll lose some time and a few scraps of wood.

Older finishing books say you can achieve deep penetration with waterbased or alcohol dyes, which would in effect be full-thickness penetration on the thin boards I gather you want to use, by long soaking. I think the pieces need to be fully immersed in the dye solution, held down by a weight of some kind.

Obviously the wood will come out fully saturated and will need careful drying afterwards so as not to bend like a banana.

 

[MIGNAL]

Even in a pressure cooker it can be difficult to get dye to go much deeper than 2 mm's. You'll need very serious pressure for 1" ! and you wouldn't want to be making such a pressure vessel at home, that's for sure. Highly dangerous. Time won't do it either or rather it might but you'll be waiting a seriously long time. You might see some results at the end of your next life or perhaps the one after that.

 

[Jacob]

I'd forgot about dyes and use different natural coloured woods for your layers. They go from near black to off white.
Or consider painting. We used to paint faces and other designs onto beech using indian inks and fine good quality brushes. You get a very clean edge with no bleeding. Very fine details with chinese calligraphy brushes. Softwood might need sealing first.

 

[ED65]

Even in a pressure cooker it can be difficult to get dye to go much deeper than 2 mm's. You'll need very serious pressure for 1" !

I have seen dyeing that's clearly gone 50-70mm, although it appears to be in through the end grain which sort of cheats the problem. As custard refers to it is deep, but not always even. Obviously you could do a few dozen pieces and use only the ones where the results were uniform.

and you wouldn't want to be making such a pressure vessel at home, that's for sure. Highly dangerous.

Agreed. Unless you're an engineer, or you know one who could help, building a system that can deal with 100psi or higher is probably not something to mess about with. Even hard-vacuum setups are nearly as dangerous.

 

[MIGNAL]

End grain is another matter. I've colied 2 mm x 6 mm x 700 mm's into a pressure cooker, boiling the stuff for over an hour. When it dried it wasn't quite all the way through and that's only 2 mm's. I had to do another session, this time 2 hours. That was with iron sulphate on Walnut, usually better at penetrating wood than any synthetic or natural vegetable dyes.
It must be pretty serious pressure to get the stuff to go 1". Kind of the vessels they have for tanalising timber.