Color Bleed

[Jerry Bruette]

I have a couple projects going that have multiple adjoining pieces that are dyed different colors with Transfast dye. I'd like to finish with a wipe on poly. Should I give them a seal coat of rattle can shellac to prevent the colors from bleeding into each other?

[Wayne Lomman]

Yes you will need to seal it with a spray finish before you touch it by hand. Don't make it too wet a coat or it will still bleed. I'm not a fan of shellac sealer preferring to keep the same product all the way through. Plenty of other guys use shellac though with good success however. It's just not my personal method. Cheers

[John TenEyck]

Transfast is water soluble, only. You did mean Transfast, correct?, because Transtint is soluble in both water and alcohol (and a few other solvents, too.) Assuming it is Transfast, you should be able to wipe on any non water based finish without problems. Of course, do a test on scrap to be sure.

John