What's the lightest ratio thinner/lacquer/dye toner recipe you've mixed up?

[Mike Dowell]

I'm curious how you all mix up toners for your spray guns. If I've got a lot of toning to do, I mix up an entire cup(1qt) worth of mixture. My recipe is 2/3 quart thinner, 1/3 quart lacquer, 2-3oz dye.

Depending on how much I've got to bend the color, I sometimes end up with too much build from the toner. I was wondering how skinny of a mixture you all have mixed up and what works well for you?

In my defense, I don't usually make a habit out of burying a piece in toner midway through the process, but as I'm sure anyone would agree, sometimes you just gotta.

[John TenEyck]

I don't use lacquer toners, but I do use a lot of shellac toners using Transtint dye. I've never added that much dye to any toner I've made. I don't think I've ever made one with more than about 0.75 oz in a quart. The photo below is of a project where I used about that concentration. Two coats of toner on northern white ash.

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I've sprayed as many as 4 shellac toner coats on some projects, but generally try to keep it to 2 or 3. I use Sealcoat shellac as the base, straight from the can at a 2 lb cut. I've never had what I thought was too thick a build up or bonding/debonding problems.

The checkerboard pattern in the piece on the right was done with a shellac toner, too. I think I sprayed one of two coats in the light areas, and 3 or 4 in the dark.

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I've also sprayed some toners in my water based clearcoats.

The top left of this sample board shows what maybe 0.25 oz of dye/quart in my topcoat did over a shellac toner.

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If you are trying to completely mask the underlying wood then I guess 2 - 3 oz./quart would do it, and it should not take many coats to get there. I've just never gone that extreme. But maybe your dye is not as concentrated as Transtint and we aren't making a direct comparison. Got any pictures and details?

John

[Mike Dowell]

Thanks for the response! I'll have to dig up some pictures of my last toner job. Actually, it was a Cherry/Maple desk and we needed it to be dark walnut. I foolishly wiped on some Minwax Dark Walnut and it splotched TO DEATH. Worst splotching I think I've ever see - some areas looked like I had rubbed a black crayon into the pores and then wiped the excess. Worst part? The color was way off. Almost a greenish tint. I know Walnut is a green, cold color but this had just mutated into something awful.

So, I went ahead and shot a washcoat of lacquer and made up a toner using my recipe. I use Mohawk Ultra Penetrating Stain which is a dye in Acetone base - highly effective. Anyhow, I loaded up some Raw Umber toner and blasted it down until the color came in. I should clarify that the toner I made was using a dye stain and not a pigment stain. I believe I would have been painting if I'd mixed up a pigment toner.

Anyway, that was using NC lacquer. I'll find the pics and post em up here. Quite impressive outcome.