curly maple is too red

[Josh Rudolph]

I got a little ahead of myself with a project and grabbed the wrong dye. I meant to grab Red Mahogany and grabbed Chardonnay instead.

So after dying my curly maple project chardonnay, it is too red for my taste. I would like to darken it and have a deeper red tone, but am not sure of the best method to get there from here.

I used Transtint mixed with water with a light sanding in between to knock down the raised fibers.

I was thinking about a washcoat of 50/50 thinned water based clear to give a barrier and then a glaze with a darker color. Before I make the trip to get the supplies I wanted hear what you all may suggest. I do have on hand some Bartley's Gel varnish and Van dyke brown oil color.

Any and all suggestions greatly appreciated.

[Paul Saffold]

I believe that bleach, like Clorox, will neutralize the dye if you haven't applied any finish on top of it. I would dilute the bleach before using and rinse it well before dying again. See what the real experts have to say before jumping back into it. Good luck.
Paul

[Josh Rudolph]

Just to give an idea of what I have at this point. Don't have a particular goal in mind at this point, just something toned down.

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[John TenEyck]

You might want to call Jeff Jewitt at Homestead Finishing to get his advise. I know if you were to dye it with green dye now, the color will go towards brown, but I'm not sure how to get to a deeper red. Maybe an extra strong mix of Red Mahogany? In any case, I would try to get close with dye first, and then if I needed to adjust the color further I'd use a toner and the glaze as the last option. It's not that I don't like glazes, it's that they obscure the grain while dyes and toners don't. But if you don't care if the grain is masked, or actually would like that feature, then a glaze will do it for you.

John

[sheldon pettit]

Just to give an idea of what I have at this point. Don't have a particular goal in mind at this point, just something toned down.

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Apply a very weak dye of green, more to the yellow side than blue side, when i say weak, i mean weak, better to have to apply it more than once than go to much to begin with, if the first coat don't get it or is still to red to your liking, re-adjust with a little more blue. Don't even think of applying anything without making up samples on scrap wood from the project, why? two things, first, as of now you really don't know what it's going to really look like till you have put all your clear coats on, [samples always please] and you wont know if you have to adjust the green until you have made a fully finished sample to know for sure.

If you do this again in the future, i will have to fire you................................

[Josh Rudolph]

John,

After thinking about it more after posting, I was thinking a green dye may be an option also. I don't want to mask the grain as it has the potential to turn out nice I believe and I like about all reasonable (read..this shade is not reasonable to me) shades of finished curly maple.

[Josh Rudolph]

If you do this again in the future, i will have to fire you................................

HAHA...I am kicking myself over my haste in grabbing the wrong bottle and then not paying that much attention when mixing it. I literally mixed it and poured it into my spray gun and didn't pay much attention until I was half way through spraying everything. By then I said I might as well make it all wrong and then bring it back from there.

I am not terribly worried about if it can be fixed as I know it can be, I'm just gun shy at this point and have too many ideas spinning around in my often conflicted head.

[sheldon pettit]

HAHA...I am kicking myself over my haste in grabbing the wrong bottle and then not paying that much attention when mixing it. I literally mixed it and poured it into my spray gun and didn't pay much attention until I was half way through spraying everything. By then I said I might as well make it all wrong and then bring it back from there.

I am not terribly worried about if it can be fixed as I know it can be, I'm just gun shy at this point and have too many ideas spinning around in my often conflicted head.

Again, if it's a matter of wanting a different red, more so than browning out the existing, then i would have to agree with the response to bleach, this will lighten the face wood but the interlocking darker grain will probably hold out some of the present red, This however will not interfere with re-applying the correct red over the whole. It may not be precisely what you had originally planned, but darn close. If you want to darken the R mahog further, just add a smidgen of black.

Again, do all this on waste material from the job, not on the actual piece!!

Ok........ maybe i won't fire you, but i will have to write you up, this has to go on your record so it will NEVER happen again !!!!!

[Prashun Patel]

Sheldon's the pro, but I would offer this:

Before you start layering different colors on, have you tried wetting the whole thing down with MS? Once topcoated, the color will become deeper and brighter. It will look less 'pink'.

[Jim Becker]

I will add that you should take some scrap of the material in your project, dye it with the same "red" and get it to the same point that your project is and then experiment with remedial steps on that scrap. Don't experiment on your real project! (And consider doing test pieces the same way for your future projects before committing yourself... )

[Josh Rudolph]

And consider doing test pieces the same way for your future projects before committing yourself...

Jim,

That is the problem...I did do test pieces. I had the chardonnay and red mahogany dye's next to each other and grabbed the wrong one when I made the mix straight into my spray cup. I didn't pay no mind until I was half way through dying the project the wrong color. Now that I am in the process of working back to a better color, I have 6 scraps setup that I am trying various dyes and bleach with to see what I like best from here.

[Jim Becker]

Sorry I missed that detail. But do try the scraps to figure out where to go from here! (Take copious notes so you can reproduce what you like on the larger scale)

[Josh Rudolph]

Wanted to drop in and give an update. Probably won't get back to this for a little while and didn't want to leave everyone hanging.

Today I went back and really went to it with a damp rag and kept wiping off with a dry rag. It did lighten the red up. Here is an after pic.


DSC_0994_sm.jpg

I also started a series of experiments on some scraps.

All 6 were dyed the original red and then wiped back just like the box. From there I added other colors or bleach.


DSC_0996_sm.jpg

All dyes were mixed to the same concentration.
Sample 1 = Lemon Yellow (too yellow for me)
Sample 2 = Blue (too purple)
Sample 3 = Green (chocolate brown...not too bad but I lose the red undertones)
Sample 4 = Lemon Yellow + Green (a nice shade of brown with just the slightest red undertone when you really look at it)
Sample 5 = Bleach (not diluted) (nice difference to give me a whole new starting point)
Sample 6 = Nothing (reference piece)

I am considering neutralizing the Bleached Sample and adding some Lemon Yellow + Green

[sheldon pettit]

Wanted to drop in and give an update. Probably won't get back to this for a little while and didn't want to leave everyone hanging.

Today I went back and really went to it with a damp rag and kept wiping off with a dry rag. It did lighten the red up. Here is an after pic.


DSC_0994_sm.jpg

I also started a series of experiments on some scraps.

All 6 were dyed the original red and then wiped back just like the box. From there I added other colors or bleach.


DSC_0996_sm.jpg

All dyes were mixed to the same concentration.
Sample 1 = Lemon Yellow (too yellow for me)
Sample 2 = Blue (too purple)
Sample 3 = Green (chocolate brown...not too bad but I lose the red undertones)
Sample 4 = Lemon Yellow + Green (a nice shade of brown with just the slightest red undertone when you really look at it)
Sample 5 = Bleach (not diluted) (nice difference to give me a whole new starting point)
Sample 6 = Nothing (reference piece)

I am considering neutralizing the Bleached Sample and adding some Lemon Yellow + Green

I'll take 4, but i'm a brown kinda guy, i wil hold back further till i see the next batch. So far, a good save, i may have to re-hire you,