When to Dye Inlays?

[Allan Froehlich]

Hello Creekers!

TITLE CORRECTION: When to Dye With Inlays

I am currently working on a few test pieces for a sideboard that I will be building soon. I decided to integrate bellflowers and other inlays into the design. The dilema that I am faced with is when I should dye the primary lumber. The dye is Transtint.


I tried to do the inlays first and then follow it up with the dye, but I found that the maple bellflower inlays tended to soak up the dye much faster than the Honduran mahogany parent material. The advantage of this method seems to be that I get to plane/scrape the whole surface flat before I proceede with a finish.
I then tried to dye the mahogany first and then insert the inlays. This method seemed to work well initially, but I soon found that the mahogany splintered lightly as I removed material for the stringing and bellflowers.
I'm guessin a third option would be to seal the bellflowers as good as I can and then apply the dye to the whole piece. I have not tried this yet, but I want some insight before I spend another 4 hours making a line of bellflowers.
The picture below shows one of my test pieces.


The side against the clamp, facing the camera, is the one where I did the inlay first and then applied a very light coat of dye. I then made the dye stronger and tried it on the small dot at the bottom of the 5 bellflowers. As you can tell, the small piece of maple wicked the dye up very well.
The top surface show where I first applied about 10 coats of the dye/denatured alcohol/shellac. I applied layers untill it matched the furniture of the room I am building the piece for. I then made my inlays. This process works to a limit. The problems are the splintering of the wood and the ease of which the surface shows the lines of the trammel/gouger/marking guage. This method will also keep me from being able to make that final pass with the scraper or plane. This process will also require me to either assemble the piece before I do the dye and then the inlays, or do the dye then inlay then assemble.
Alright Creekers, what do you think?

[Allan Froehlich]

Bump!

No input yet?

[Scott Holmes]

You may want to try soaking the bellflowers in dye to color them all the way through the veneer, then cut and inlay.

[Allan Froehlich]

You may want to try soaking the bellflowers in dye to color them all the way through the veneer, then cut and inlay.

What I want to do is have the inlays stay their natural color and not be dyed dark like the mahogany.

[Scott Holmes]

Sorry I misunderstood...

You may need to dye the mahogany first, then do the inlay, then seal it with shellac then tape the inlay with Sherwin-Williams razor tape; then use a toner to touch up the mahogany that gets skinned while leveling the inlays.

[Steve Schoene]

This is a good place for a chemical stain--one that reacts with the tannin in the mahogany, but has little effect on the maple, which has much less tannin. For example. Potassium dichromate gives a rich brown on mahogany, though this is poisonous stuff. Another approach uses hydrated lime to get a more red mahogany look. Rob Millard has talked about this method. http://rlmillard.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/05/index.html

[Prashun Patel]

I've no experience with Potassium Dichromate, but it's been my experience with vinegar-and-iron dye that it has an effect on ALL woods. It turned my oak jet black, and even hard maple and cherry light grey.

The flattest, cleanest approach will be if you can live without colorants on both the inlays and the parent material. Mahogany will darken over time, so the contrast will become more apparent over time. Further, oil, or shellac will cause the mahogany color to deepen and will only make the maple turn amber (some people don't like their maple yellowish, though). That's what I'd do.

Remember that it's not the maple that's soaking the dye - but the fact that it's got a lot of end grain exposed. If I had to do this again, I'd leave the inlays a little proud: 1) shellac the inlay top, 2) glue in the inlay - taking care to cover all the end grain with glue, 3) dye the whole piece, 4) shellac the whole piece, 5) use a router with a bottom cleaning bit to cut down the inlay within a hair of the surface.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Here's how I do it:

http://www.missionfurnishings.com/Custom.aspx?id=793f978f-f2a1-4b33-9451-78534a22625c
.

[Allan Froehlich]

I am beginning to feel optimistic about this project!

I did a little searching on the internet and I found some info on potassium dichromate. I'll be frank and admit that it looks ideal!

If anyone has read up on PD, they will know that it is very toxic. I am curious as to how toxic it is after application. I'm curious to the point that I want to contact my old organic chemistry professor and have him test a piece of mahogany, treated with PD, to see if there is still some residual PD in the grain. I'm guessing he would take a small chip of the mahogany and run it through an infrared spectronomer to see what is in there. IIRC, those machines are very sensitive.

[Allan Froehlich]

I just bought a pound of PD. Updates soon!

[Allan Froehlich]

This stuff is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Allan Froehlich]

Here are some pics of the progress...

The first photo shows the test piece right after the first coat.
The second photo shows the test piece after about 5 coats.
The third photo shows the test piece after 10 total coats and allowing it to dry overnight.

For my PD solution, I combined about 1/4 teaspoon of the PD with 8 oz of tap water.

Over all, I like the finish.

Note how clear the maple is in the final pic!!! Mission accomplished!!!

[James Ogle]

I agree PD is some great stuff just very nasty. I use it on cherry a lot. I use a cheap dust mask when handling the powder, it is that nasty. You might also want to try ammonia. It darkens mahogany but I can't remember if it affects maple or not.

Also very nice looking inlay can't wait to see the final project.

[Prashun Patel]

Alan-
Would you mind sharing your process? This is a problem I pretty much gave up on. I really like yr results.