Steps for finished with dyes

[Bryan Spraul]

I have a entertainment center/stand that I'm just about ready to finish but I am fairly novice in wood finishing as I've only every used things out of a can ie Minwax and various polys.

It is made from ash as I have kids and wanted a hard to dent wood and around here Ash is cheaper than oak. The flip side is my wife likes her furniture dark so not staining is not an option. My plan is use dye to keep the end grain from becoming overly dark and at the same time have some good control over how dark the wood gets it gets by controlling the dye concentration. My understanding is that ash and dye may have some issues due to the pores and it may require a pigment. Finally given this is family room furniture it will likely have sodas/cups etc on it so I need a final finished that is robust. I have used the Varathane water based poly before and I like it so that is what I was planning on doing. There are a lot more steps in here than my usual so I wanted to run this by more knowledgeable folks to make sure this is correct.

1) Wet wood with water to raise the grain (I'm using a water based dye)
2) Sand wood after it is has dried.
3) Apply dye stain liberally from bottom up
4) Coat with a dewaxed shellac to seal the dye in
5) Apply pigment if necessary to fill pores (suggestions on product to use?)
6) Apply final finish (shellac, poly...)

Thanks.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

My technique skips a lot of your steps, but requires you to spray at least your first coat of poly.

1) After finish sanding, apply dye. I've dyed red oak completely black, and had no issues with the pores.

2) Spray on first coat of water based poly. I actually try to spray two coats at once, spraying the second as soon as the4 first gets tacky.

3) Let dry overnight. The surface will be rather rough, from the raised grain. I sand all flat areas with 220 using a random orbit sander, and hand sand all the edges. Be careful on the corners not to sand through the finish and remove any dye.

4) Apply as many finish coats as required, sanding as needed in between.

You can substitute shellac in step 2 to better seal in the dye.

[John TenEyck]

If you sand the end grain two grits finer than the rest it won't end up darker when you apply an oil based stain. You can get any color you want, too, light or dark, just like you can with dyes. The benefit is you can eliminate the grain raising steps, which can be a real bear with coarse grained woods like ash. I've had problems with WB dyes on ash; it definitely behaved differently than oak for me, another reason I would avoid it.

Do some tests on scrap and see which approach you like best.

John

[Stan Calow]

No expert here, but I've used Transtint in alcohol on ash to get a very dark reddish-brown color, w/o grain issues. Sprayed on a few coats to get even color and finished with Arm-R-Seal.

[Prashun Patel]

I just finished some cabinets for my bathroom (they were unfinished veneer over plywood).

I sanded my sapelle veneer to 240 g.

I used two dyes (Yellow Transtint in alcohol and then Dark Walnut dye powder dissolved in water).

I sprayed a few coats of Sealcoat shellac

I sanded with 600g.

I found that some of the yellow dye was visible on the sandpaper, but NONE of the brown dye. Some of the dye will lift into the sealer, so if you sand aggressively, you risk affecting the dye. Assuming your veneer isn't blotchy, then using a waterbased dye that I could soak in and wipe off resulted in even and thorough coverage. Every time I've tried to SPRAY dark, it is an exercise in blending and air brushing. I just found the WB dye easier in this case. YMMV.

While it adds another step to the process, the times I've used shellac I found that a) the top coats go on very even and smooth right from the first coat, which reduces the tendency to over spray too thick a coat. b) A blonde shellac adds a little warmth that some water based topcoats lack. I did not knock back the grain. After a couple coats of shellac, it sanded perfectly smooth, without any noticeable damage to the undercoat. I think sanding with 220 after dye has been applied isn't adviseable. Too easy to mess up the color.

Applying pigment will not fill your pores. It may color the pores, but I'm not sure you need it. The grain on woods like ash and oak are so prominent that they show up fine without bringing attention to them. In fact, finishing them with a dye mitigates some of the zebra - stripe effect you can get where the grain lines actually appear black from the lodged pigment. That's an aesthetic choice, tho.

If yr talking about filling the grain so it can have a perfectly flat, mirror finish, then consider your final finish. If, like me, you prefer case goods in a satin finish, and if there aren't a lot of broad, flat visible surfaces, then the benefit of grain filling is really marginal.

[Chris Padilla]

SPRAY the dye. Spraying allows you the best control over any other way to apply it since you aren't actually touching the wood and leaving more dye in one spot as you drag it out of another spot. Things could be more forgiving with ash (don't know...never dyed ash before) but this is a MUST on small porous woods like maple. There is just no other way to get an even coating IMO.