I was lucky to get some boxwood elder for turning but the color leaves fast. Before turning how or what is the best way to store the pieces and second when turned what finish should I use to slow color fade??
Thanks, Syd
[OP]
Contributor
I was lucky to get some boxwood elder for turning but the color leaves fast. Before turning how or what is the best way to store the pieces and second when turned what finish should I use to slow color fade??
Thanks, Syd
Moderator
This article might help explain things about color in wood:Originally Posted by Syd Lorandeau
http://www.wood-database.com/wood-ar...-exotic-woods/
Most Box Elder I've seen did fade quickly and the red turned to pale brown. One exception: Lissi Oland gave me some wood from a Box Elder root ball which had some of the brightest red color I've ever seen. Years later, one piece I made still has color although it has faded some.
In general, keeping wood out of the light and away from the oxygen in the air sometimes helps for a while.
JKJ
Guest
Oregon Myrtle has the same problem. Freshly cut the colors are astounding but a couple months later they've faded back to hardly visible. The grain is still pretty cool but the colors are mostly muted.
I do kind of wonder if you couldn't treat the wood with something akin to the mordants used in wool dying to stabilize some of the colors in some cases.
To bad too because some of the pieces start out really impressive.
IMG_20141211_104346_779.jpg
Edit: I saw that same piece of wood a couple weeks later and you could still see the figure but it was all shades of brown and didn't have half the contrast.
Moderator
Now THAT'S and idea worth an experiment!
JKJ
Guest
There are a few challenges here that I'm not entirely sure how to overcome.
The biggest is that dying cellulose based products is significantly more difficult with natural dyes than protein based products. Most cotton for instance is dyed with aniline dyes (or functional equivalents). My small forays into cotton dying have had decidedly mixed luck. Having said that there are some natural (and wood based) dyes that do tend to work moderately well for cellulose (unfortunately most of them are forms of black, brown, and muddy green which puts us back where we were). So at best this might work for a limited set of woods that have the right natural pigments - I think that's acceptable but lowers the chances of it being widely applicable significantly.
Fixing the colors tends to involve long steeps or even boils in the mordants (and colors). I'm not sure but perhaps a steam box might suffice for this, some testing would be required. This also has some implications for mixed colors of wood, I think you would need to "fix" the color before assembly to avoid bleeding,. So perhaps a possible solution for inlay/veneer but maybe not as much for turnings or other pre-assembled pieces (not to mention that generally hours of hot moist air isn't good for glue ups). I'm not sure how heat affects some of the colors in things like box elder either. Perhaps you could saturate the wood ahead of time with the mordant and then dry bake it to "fix" the color - I'm not sure on the penetration capabilities of the mordant solutions.
It could take years to know how well it worked for sure. I guess if one were to invest in a couple strong UV lights it would be possible to do accelerated aging tests.
If anyone wants to give it a shot here's a short list of dyes and suggested mordants. For cellulose the mordants are mostly tannin and alum; so for low tannin woods both and for high tannin woods just alum.
http://www.maiwa.com/pdf/natural_dyeing.pdf
Moderator
I talked to some other knowledgeable people the other day who basically said the same thing (but not as clearly or in as great of detail!) The consensus was to keep the color use an air brush. :-)
Perhaps there are effective color-fixing chemicals and techniques waiting to be discovered some day.
JKJ
Guest
Talking further to the local dye expert the other possible suggestion was pre-treating with an oxygen reducer - the most commonly used at home is sodium hydrosulfite which is ironically sold as "rit dye remover" (pretty sure that's ironic..). That was partially based on the concept that the finish excluded further oxygen exchange which we also know to be not true. I suspect that the oxygen reducers would also cause other problems.
It was a fun thought process anyway
I still think there's a bit of room for experimentation here though based on the effects fuming with ammonia or treating with iron oxide has.. I kind of like the idea of some of that better than straight up dyes for no rational reason.
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