Another Maple & Dye question.

[Lou Ferrarini]

I am building a project out of hard Maple and need some advice. I would like to mimic the color of my kitchen cabinets which is best as I can describe, a cinnamon color. I have never used dyes before, but after reading all the info on this board, it seems the way to go. My local Woodcraft carries Transtint and Homestead dyes.
Are these similiar in quality? Can they be mixed with alchohol, water or a combination? I have a PC HVLP conversion gun (PSH-1). Is this sutible for spraying dyes? I have only used it for Lacquer in the past.

Any other advice you can give me is welcome.

Thanks

[Jim Becker]

Lou, the liquid dye should be universal and mix with either water or alcohol. Powdered dyes are usually specific to water or alcohol. Unless you will be spraying the dye, I suggest you stick with water soluble as it's easier to work with and blend. The alcohol soluble dyes flash off so quickly that it's very hard to hand-apply them without noticeable overlaps. I'm sure that either of the brands you cite will give you good results in the end, but you MUST experiment to get your final color regimen on scrap of the same material you will be building with and that includes your sealing with de-waxed shellac after coloring and putting on your top coats. The latter will affect the final color so you need to see what it does.

[Steve Schoene]

Personally, I don't think that the TransTint should be used as a basic dye. Since it dissolves in about all solvents as the dye, it also dissolves in those same solvents in a top coat. If you spray a dry first coat may finessse that problem, but with a brushed or wiped top coat you are likely to get some bleeding into the top coat.

That's why the water soluble dye, TransFast is one, is so good. First it gives you plenty of working time and then you can top coat with shellac or an oil based finish with very little bleeding.

You can spray dye though unless it's a big project the clean up time will hardly be worth it. A good job can be obtained applying the water soluble dye by hand.

[Lou Ferrarini]

Thanks Jim,

Another few questions. If I go with the alchohol and spray, will that give me a better result than the water based?

Also, I have never used shellac. When you say dewaxed, I assume you are talking about the flakes you dissolve in alchahol, not the pre-mixed variety? Or are they both good?

[Jim Becker]

How good spraying the dye will be directly related to how well you know how to spray... ;)

Most de-waxed shellac "out there" is in flake form, but Zinsser SealCoat, available from most of the 'borgs is dewaxed. I use a lot of the SealCoat 'cause it's convenient and I'm fine with the lighter color most of the time.

[Jon Crowley]

I just went through my virgin experience with dyes using transfast (powder) from Rockler, which I mixed with water. Like the others are saying, the hard part is that many finishes will re-dissolve the dried dye.

To get around that, I used dye, then hand rubbed BLO, which did pick up some of the color on the rag. My theory is that BLO penetrates, so when that's dry, the dye should be sealed for good... maybe... :)

At that point I used dewaxed shellac (zinsner sealcoat) to start building a film finish. It worked very well and I'm happy with the result.