maple table base dying red?

[eugene thomas]

I am going to make maple round table with carvings in the top and going to have red base. The top will be sprayed with clear finish. The base needs to be red. Thinking dying the wood might work? Kind of looking for good starting point on wood dying and sources.

eugene

[Prashun Patel]

Spray red transtint.

[Jim Becker]

Dye is absolutely the way to go with maple or any other close grained wood species!

[eugene thomas]

Any leads on good source for dyes. Like to be able to talk to person in the order process though...

[Prashun Patel]

If you need to talk to someone, call Homestead Finishing. I believe this is Jeff Jewitt's company. You'll likely get Jeff on the phone. Jeff is a professional, and extremely helpful.

He'll guide you.

FWIW, though, I've used a decent amount of Transtint. You can buy it at Homestead but also at many places online and most Rockler/Woodcrafts. It comes in a liquid concentrate that you dilute in water or alcohol and sponge or spray on.

A dense wood like maple - especially around areas of transitioning grain (such as in bowls or carved elements) will take dark dyes unevenly; You can get striping. It is therefore my opinion that you should spray the dye, thinned in ethanol or (if you can do it safely) an even lighter solvent. The solvent flashes off quicker and leaves more dye at the surface; you can almost 'paint' with it if you do multiple applications. It's harder to do this with water because it dries so slowly.

A lot of people prefer using powdered dyes like Transfast. However, some of these are ONLY miscible in water (or solvents that you may not have access to for good reason) so they are trickier to spray.

If you want to highlight areas of grain transition and are looking to do a sunburst or funky pattern that celebrates the grain (think guitars) then sponging is a good way to go.