Help me get this color right.....

[Terry Hatfield]

Hey guys,

Well I'm finally trying to get finished with the display cabinets for my mother. I'm up to the staing stage and I got a problem.

I took a piece of the moulding from her house to Lowes with me and decided that the Early American Minwax stain looked really close. Problem is the mouldings and existing shelves in this room are all fir or pine. The display cabinets are red oak. The "tint" of the color looks right but the oak will not accept nearly as much of the stain as the fir/pine did so it looks way too light.

Any suggestions??? I have tried mixing other stains etc.... No good. Would a dye work better?? If so please suggest for me what to get and how to do it. I have never used a dye before.

TIA,

Terry

[Terry Quiram]

Terry

Last year my wife and I matched a new Oak table top to an antique apron and legs. After a lot of experimenting with color combinations we ended up starting with orange dye, then a very diluted walnut oil stain, 3 coats of spanish oak oil stain, then finished with the colored min-wax poly. It wans't exact, but close. I enjoyed the experimenting much more that applying the finish to the end product.

It ain't science. :D

Terry

[Gary Hern]

Hi Terry,

I've had to try to match a few pieces of work for customers, and drove myself batty on the first attempt. I've since given up trying to concoct my own mixture for matches. I have a place called paint supply relatively close to me, and they color match for me. Costs a little more, but they have gotten it right 5 times now, without having to return for a trip. I also had a Porter store do it for me with good results. Take them a piece, and let them run it through their scanner, and they should do a good job for you. On commercial work where time is money, this is a dirt cheap way of doing it!

[Byron Trantham]

Terry, I have switched to Dye in an effort to convert all my finishes to water based products. I have found that I really like dye for the very reason you are frustrated. It's fairly easy to come close to a match because you can mix very small quantities for testing and its easy to clean up. I have purchased about a dozen colors that are close to the finishes I seem to do most. I mixed them 400% concentration, 1 oz dye to 8 oz water. Put them in well labeled plastic bottles and now I can use an eyedropper to extract enough dye by counting the number of drops of dye and adding the appropriate number of drops of water to bring the dye back to the original recommended concentrating. Now you can test that. It it isn't right, too dark, too light, need more red or brown just add water or another dye and test. Sounds complicated but I'm color challenged and with my wife's help I finally got the hang of it. the best part is how little you use to get the match and how easy it it is to clean up. FWIW, I used 2# cut shellac to seal the dye and then water based lacquer for the top coat.

BTW, I just finished making about a gazillion test strips in Birch and Red Oak. They are about 1/2" wide and 3" long. I have dyed a sample with every color of dye I have, one at full concentration and one with 1/2 concentration. I drilled a hole in the end of the test strip and looped a tie wrap through them so we now have color samples on actual wood. I think this is going to make the color match process even easier. We'll see. :p

[Mac McAtee]

Terry, I have switched to Dye in an effort to convert all my finishes to water based products.

Byron,
Now this sounds interesting. Something that I have thought about but never had the nerve to put out the bucks for all the different colors.

How about expanding on what you have done? What brand stuff? Transtint? What colors are your basics? I really like what Jeff Jewitt does with dyes in his books but at $20 for a 1 oz bottle it kind of makes me step back. That would mean for 8 basic colors you fork out $160. If you only used half of them most of the time---- well I guess the Scot in me surfaces from time to time.

At any rate, if you will, tell me more.
Mac

[Byron Trantham]

I buy my dye from Woodworker's Supply. The brand is J. E. Moser. They run about $7 an ounce. The colors that I started with are:Early American Cherry (W1430), Honduras Brown Mahogany (W1290), Dark Colonial Red Mahogany (W1270), Medium Yellow Maple (W1510), Pilgrim Maple (W1460), Medium Red Mahogany (W1260), Flemish Brown Oak (W1130), Light Golden Oak (W1100), Deep Cordovan Mahogany (W1090), Dark Golden Oak (W1110) and Brown Walnut (W1570). I bought them a few at a time. Now I have browns, yellows and reds. When you make the test strips and lay them next to each other you can see a wide range of color possibilities. - or at least my wife can :D

Now that I can mix very small controlled quantities, I can buy the amount of dye I need without breaking the bank.

Once I get the samples dyed, I finish them the way I would finish the end product, namely I apply 2# cut shellac to seal it then WB lacquer as the top coat. This process provides the actual end result. Lay it up against what you are trying to match and see how it looks. My wife knows what to add it the color needs to be shifted in some way. remember, I said I am color challenged so I depend on her for any significant color changes required. The test strips have made it a lot less difficult for her to figure out the changes.

I store my dye in 32 oz, brown plastic bottles because I can get these bottles fairly cheap. As I understand it, water based dye has a good shelf life even after its been mixed. I pre-mix it to a 400% concentration (1/4 the recommended water) so I can sneak up on the intensity of the color.

Hope this helps.