Water based dye on cherry

[Bud hill]

I am having problems finishing a cherry desk and cabinets for my wife. Let me first state that I am a total novice when it comes to finishing. The top for the desk is bubinga. I used EM8000 for the finish on the top and that looks good. For the base I planed on finishing with a couple coats of garnet shellac and then GF Black Cherry water based stain followed by semi gloss endurovar. I made some small test pieces and everything worked great. This combination looks really good with the bubinga and my wife has blessed it. Now the problems start. I've found that the water based stain dries so fast its hard to get a uniform finish on larger pieces. I also need to use the same finish for a couple of cherry plywood panels that I need to use elsewhere in the room. I have had no success in using the stain on these panels. After reading some of the posts on here I'm now not sure I can make this work. I need to add some color to this cherry to make it look good with the top. The wife is never going to go along with letting it age naturally. Would it be better to use transtint in the shellac to try to match the Black cherry? If so does anybody have an idea what colors to start with? I'm running out of time to get the base cabinets in. Its ok if i take longer on the desk.

[Steve Schoene]

Ideally you would strip off the GF stain and start over at least with the shellac as first coat you won't have to much problem getting rid of the stain layer.. That GF stain is one of the products that turn out to be hard to use, exactly because it dries so fast. In addition, it like other stains is generally used over bare wood, though one very light wash coat of shellac at about 1 lb. cut to control blotches. Used over sealed wood, it's a toner and a challenge to get even without spraying. Yes, the GF product has dye colorant, but it is combined with a waterborne sealer. Might be great if you were spraying it on.

Adding Transtint to shellac gives you another very hard to use product, similar to Minwax Polyshades and the GF stain. Combination products look like they would save time and effort that that is often illusion.

I think you would have more success using powdered water soluble dye such as TransFast or one of the many colors made by W.D. Lockwood. Mixed with water this dries slower, and can be flooded on (I use a sponge) and tweaked until you get it right. You control the intensity of color by controlling the concentration of the dye solution you have mixed up.

[Prashun Patel]

You can also mix Transtint in water. In water it applies similarly to Transfast.

How are you applying your shellac? If you are spraying it, then I humbly disagree with Steve that tinting it gives a hard-to-apply finish. On the contrary, I have found spraying tinted shellac to be quite easy and in fact a wonderful way to sneak up on a color. Especially on a blotchy wood like cherry - and especially with a plywood panel where it's tricky to get uniform coloring - spraying a toner is a nice way to control things. The only caveat is that you should thin your shellac so that you don't end up with a thick coat of it along with your dye.

Have to ask though: garnet shellac on cherry deepens the color by itself. It's not cowbell enough for you?

[Bud hill]

Steve and Prashun thanks for the advice. I am going to woodcraft this morning and get both Transtint and Transfast to try. I have just purchased an Apollo 4 spray gun and used this for the Garnet shellac. The GF stain I applied by hand. It looks to thick to spray? What we like about the black cherry is it made the grain dark and then the red is over that. Has anyone tried to spray the GF stain and if they did how much did they have to thin it and did it work? I have asked GF about this put so far have not heard back. It looks like I have a lot of experimenting to do.

[John TenEyck]

Transtint is both water and alcohol soluble, so you didn't really need to buy the Transfast. Oh well, now you have some. I'm with Prashun, spraying shellac + Transtint as a toner is easy and a great way to get color on blotchy woods without blotching. I know people say you can flood water based dye onto blotch prone woods w/o it blotching but I've never been successful. I have been able to spray WB dye without blotching as long as I don't spray any excess, just enough to put the color on the wood. If I need to go really dark I'll spray multiple coats to assure it's uniform. If you liked the black cherry WB stain because it darkened the grain, I humbly suggest you consider spraying dye or toner first to give you the background red color you want and then use an OB gel stain to put dark color in the grain of the wood. I did this piece that way.

311542

The wood is white ash. The finish was amber shellac + Transtint Reddish Brown + Bright Red dyes. I sprayed two coats. Then I wiped on GF's OB Java Gel stain and wiped it off leaving color only in the pores. After 2 days I sealed it with Sealcoat shellac and then sprayed two coats of GF's Enduro Clear Poly in flat sheen. You could get about the same result by spraying WB dye -shellac sealer - OB gel stain - sealer - finish.

John

[Kent A Bathurst]

Transtint is both water and alcohol soluble, so you didn't really need to buy the Transfast. Oh well, now you have some.

Cool........an opportunity to "yeahbut" J10: THose are few and far between. :p


Yeah.... but.........

For us proles that don't spray, the water-soluble is the way to go for hand application. Very easy to do, and do well. BUT - you gotta use the Transfast powder, not hte Transtint. The transtint in water "lifts" too easily when you go on with the next coat of something [invariably a shellac seal coat for me]. The transfast in water has a very little bit of lift - but entirely manageable, IMO.

And - yeah, yeah - I know - don't start...........I gotta get me a spray rig sometime. ;) But - J10 has already offered to me me schlep my way to NY and be his grunt for a few days to learn. So - that will be nice if/when it happens.

[John TenEyck]

I've talked with your surgeon Kent and he agrees that learning to handle a spray gun will be a perfect exercise as part of your upcoming rehab. Beautiful Lewiston NY is, indeed, beautiful in the Summer so start planning your trip. Seriously.

Of course you are right about the benefit of Transfast for those who don't spray. That said, I hate using water soluble dye on white oak because of the grain raising. And there's still the issue of blotching on maple, cherry, etc.

John

[Kent A Bathurst]

I've talked with your surgeon Kent and he agrees that learning to handle a spray gun will be a perfect exercise as part of your upcoming rehab. Beautiful Lewiston NY is, indeed, beautiful in the Summer so start planning your trip. Seriously.

Did you notice how all my Ortho Surgeons [this is my 4th] are all in their mid-20's? Yeesh. On the other hand, when I was that age, I was omniscient, 9-ft tall, and bulletproof, so I guess that's fine.



That said, I hate using water soluble dye on white oak because of the grain raising. And there's still the issue of blotching on maple, cherry, etc.


Legit points.

But - in my case - I always start with 2 coats of 3/4# shellac for a seal coat, and to even out the dye absorption. Followed by very light scuff-sanding with 400 or 600g. I do 2 coats [with padding cloth] to be sure I get an even base: First coat starts front left, L-to-R to the back right corner; 2d coat the exact opposite - cover my tracks, so to speak.

Then the dye

Then the seal coats again, with the scuff sanding.

Never any blotching, and the waterborne fuzzies are loooooog gone by the time the varnish hits the WO...........

But - back to the point about a spray rig...............

[Rich Engelhardt]

I gotta get me a spray rig sometime.Put on one of your "It's time to sneak into Harbor Freight" disguises and sneak on over there to pick up one of their 20 oz. gravity feed HVLP guns.
http://www.harborfreight.com/20-oz-high-volume-low-pressure-gravity-feed-spray-gun-47016.html
They go on sale all the time.
IIRC, I paid about $11 for mine.

[John TenEyck]

Put on one of your "It's time to sneak into Harbor Freight" disguises and sneak on over there to pick up one of their 20 oz. gravity feed HVLP guns.
http://www.harborfreight.com/20-oz-high-volume-low-pressure-gravity-feed-spray-gun-47016.html
They go on sale all the time.
IIRC, I paid about $11 for mine.

It's on sale right now for $9.99. That thing sprays shellac and other light finishes amazingly well. If you have a compressor that can put out about 6 CFM at 40 psi you don't need much more to spray a nice finish.

John