I work in a lot of bland woods. I would only have access to the exotics through online purchases or if I was on vacation to Minneapolis or KC and visited a Woodcraft. Walnut is rare to find though the tree is everywhere, but a lot of what I find freshly cut is maple, poplar, aspen, and other pale, bland woods. I was watching some videos on dyeing turnings today, and I've always been very impressed by some of those I see online on the forums. The colors and depth with the glossy topcoat look really nice to me. I looked online at tutorials and dye prices for anilines and the like. I have some blue aniline from years back is powder form. I ran across some folks, though, that were using fabric dye such as Rit on their turnings with success. Steve Schlumpf had a popular post for a hollow form he dyed with Rit. So....I thought I'd run to my local Michael's store and see what colors there were. Lo and behold they had Tulip brand fabric dye on clearance for .99 -2.50 depending on color....most were $1.79. For that price I thought what the heck, let's give'r a try. I purchased 10 colors in liquid form and four packets of powder. I'll probably experiment with those with DNA, vinegar or water to see how they work with each. I also purchased two metallic, acrylic paints in copper and gold to see how they looked.
I had an old poplar (I think) platter that I'd turned for practice and thought it would make a good test piece. I put on the green, lime, black, purple, light blue, yellow and fuschia. I also put the copper and gold in the center in a small patch. What you see if the first coat. Some of the dyes were thin and others (black) thick. They went on easy and dried very quickly. I'll need to sand them back for a second coat. I thinned the purple with water and it looks very blue to me. The black is very uniform and I am most impressed with it. I think it'll make a nice dye for the inside of forms. The copper and gold both look really nice too. I think they'll make a great accent if I decide to do that. I'm going to let them dry and then sand them back and see what that does. I then may try mixing colors for the next coat to see what happens. I plan to end it all with a high gloss top coat on whatever I end up with just to see how that finish goes on and dries on these dyes.
If you have any tips for me I'd sure appreciate them (besides don't color wood, I've already crossed that bridge, it's too late).
Thanks,
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