Need help finishing Zebrawood

[John Coloccia]

Transtint works well in shellac, though I normally spray it on.

[Scott Holmes]

If it will dissolve in alcohol then use alcohol. Some are water only. try using the alcohol dye on bare wood.

[Jamie Schmitz]

I was at a custom lumber yard the other day and all their chunks (turners,carving pieces) of wood that they dip in wax looked exactly like that. Also have you read anything as far as coloring with natural elements for example -soaked walnut shells,chemicals? Might try some colored Watco as well if you have not,either stock can or slightly colored burnt umber,black mixture. Just a thought, coloring an exotic wood can be challenging for sure. Age is something that is not for sale.

[Prashun Patel]

Zebrawood finished with an amber shellac or varnish (like Waterlox) looks great, IMHO. However, I find it hard to believe that an aniline dye would not evenly color the bare zebrawood, and that tinting with shellac is not achieving the right results for you. What dye are you using?

[Andy Kromkamp]

I'm just guessing but I think its probably a lot harder to get an even finish on a veneer then a piece of the solid wood? I have tried Watco medium walnut and black walnut - the former looks good but not as dark as I would like, the latter absorbs unevenly and produces the banding effect I mentioned before (even if I put down a base coat of BLO).

Prashun its not that the dye did not produce an even coloring, its just that it totally obscured the wood grain - as if I had simply painted over it. With respect to tinting the shellac, I added 1.5 tablespoons of dark walnut dye (a quarter tablespoon at a time) to approx. 100ml of de-waxed garnet shellac and that produced a medium coloring - similar but a little lighter than the Watco medium walnut color. Not nearly as dark as I had hoped (or expected)

I'll try to take some pictures of my experiments to date and upload them tonight so you can have a look.

Thanks!

[Andy Kromkamp]

Didn't get a chance to take pictures last night, I'll do so tonight hopefully.

I did have some promising results with gel stain over shellac so I'll going to experiment with that a little more. I noticed it needs two coats of 1# shellac before applying the stain - with only one coat the stain bleeds through to the wood and causes the banding to occur.

I'm going to try to find zinsser seal coat (de-waxed premixed blonde) locally - for some reason the big box stores only carry the waxed bullseye product...

[Prashun Patel]

That's great, Andy. Good luck.

I tried some tests on Zebrawood myself last night with an 'espresso' aniline mix I made from mostly black dye and a hint of brown. I was surprised at how little it blackened the wood. However, what is MOST striking is that when it dries, it almost appears as if NO dye had been applied. It takes a wetting or a top coat for the color to come out again. That got me thinking: did you evaluate your results wet or after the dye dried? It's a mistake to judge dye colors when they're dry.

Anyway, good luck with yr gel; sounds like it's working out.

[Andy Kromkamp]

interesting - did you mix with water or alcohol? The coloring I saw (and see) was the same wet and dried.

I'll upload the pictures tonight - the dye coloring is dramatic to say the least (and I barely mixed any dye into the water)

[George Gyulatyan]

Andy, be aware that aniline dyes may appear chalky when dry. Once you apply clear coat over top of it, you'll get the lustre back.

[Mike Wilkins]

2nd ditto on the Garnet shellac. I finished some old heart pine with a Garnet top coats and it looks awesome. Experiment with some scraps using different amounts of coats. Garnet with a couple of top coats of Danish just might be the bees knees.

[Andy Kromkamp]

Okay, here are some pictures of my experiments to date. First the best candidates. The samples, from left to right, are: 1)BLO only, 2)BLO, 2 coats of 1# shellac, thin coat of dark walnut gel stain, 3)Saman walnut stain+varnish (Raw Zebrawood veneer in the background)



In this picture (dark walnut liquid stain right onto conditioned veneer) you can see the "banding" I have been seeing with so many different products:



This last picture are my three aniline dye samples - they actually look better in the picture compared to real life to the right are more BLO samples, you can see how much the grain is obscured by the dye:

[Scott Holmes]

Mike,

"Danish oil" is typically an oil/varnish blend; it should be an in-the-wood finish not a top coat to a filmforming finish. The film it wwould form would be soft and rubbery. Shellac is very hard.

[Andy Kromkamp]

I picked up a gallon of zinger seal coat - more than I need but this seems like a pretty versatile product.Question - do you think I should expect a difference between sealcoat by itself and sealcoat over a coat of BLO? I don't see any difference - I expected the BLO basecoat to darken/further enhance the grain.

[Scott Holmes]

The surface with BLO will darken over time more than shellac only surface.