Colorful Dyes

[Larry Frank]

I am doing some Holiday projects with Baltic Birch and want to use some bright colors such as red, green, blue, and yellow. I want to use dyes and not pigments or paints.

I have looked at Transtint, Transfast and ColorFX. These are not cheap but I can not find any alternatives.

Does anyone have experience using these bright colors or are there some alternatives in dyes?

[Prashun Patel]

WD Lockwood has nice powder dyes. I've used the Waterbased ones to good effect.

Transfast powder dyes are also waterbased and get good reviews.

Highland WW has some other brands too - specifically for toys. I think the brand is Arti.

[David Dockstader]

If they are smaller projects, don't forget about Ritz fabric dyes. I've used them for dying letters on name puzzles I have made and they are very good. Obviously, they are also food safe (I know you don't eat your clothes, but little kids will suck on them, so the dyes have to be safe).

[Stew Hagerty]

Yeah, Lockwood powders are less expensive. You might also look at General Finishes. They don't have a lot in the way of wild colors but they do have a couple, and they come premixed in pints. They are pretty cost effective.

GF Water Based Dye Chart.jpg

[John TenEyck]

Food dyes actually work very well and are pretty colorfast if you topcoat them with a product that has a good UV package, like GF's HP Poly. But Transtint dyes are an amazingly good deal once you realize how many square feet you can dye with that little bottle. They are expensive up front, but last a very long time. And you can dilute them in water or in alcohol or in acetone to make dyes, and you can add them directly to shellac or lacquer to make toners. Very versatile.

John

[Larry Frank]

Thanks for the replies....I ordered a small trial group of Arti dyes from Highland Woodworking as suggested by Prashun.

[Prashun Patel]

I did not mean to suggest that i used arti dyes, only that highland sells them.

[Larry Frank]

Prashun....I understand what you said. Highland has a very reasonably priced trial set of dyes that I can try. It will be good to just try them and learn about them.

[James B Lee]

I've had excellent results Keda dyes. And they're inexpensive. Google Keda dyes and you'll find them.
They have an Ebay store. think I paid 15 bucks for the primary colors with free shipping.

[Mike Henderson]

Try Rit clothes dye. Lots of colors.

Mike

[whit richardson]

Mohawk has Blendall dyes very good quality. They sell to the professional market so it has to work well and has to look good.