Dyed veneer - advice needed

[Mike Henderson]

I need to dye some veneer because I can't find the colors I want commercially available. My first thought was to use basswood veneer but I can't find that either.

What wood would you recommend for dying? It needs to be a light colored, porous wood that will soak up the dye all the way through. So maple would not be good because it doesn't soak up dye very well.

What light colored hardwood soaks up dye really well? And is available in veneer.

Mike

[Jamie Buxton]

I tried for quite a while to get dye to penetrate completely through standard sliced veneer. I tried soaking the veneer in dye for days. I tried pressure-cooking it in dye. Nothing worked. Clearly it can be done -- you can buy dyed veneer -- but I don't know how.

[David DeCristoforo]

Try leather dye. It is available in black, all of the "primary"colors and many shades of brown. You can mix just about any shade you want and it seems to work better than any of the dyes I have tried that are sold as "wood dyes".

As to the veneer itself, I have often used bleach to remove the color from whatever veneer I wanted to dye. Most woods can be bleached to a near white. Walnut bleaches out especially well.

[Cary Swoveland]

I've heard holly is sometimes dyed black as an ebony substitute, so maybe it could be dyed other colors as well. (Considering that holly is nearly as expensive as ebony, I don't know why one would do that.) Holly is certainly light-colored, and looks like it would dye well.

Does it have to be hardwood? How about something like a whitish poplar or western maple?

Did you check Lee Valley? They sell some dyed veneers.

I'd be interested in a follow-up.

Cary

[Mike Henderson]

I've heard holly is sometimes dyed black as an ebony substitute, so maybe it could be dyed other colors as well. (Considering that holly is nearly as expensive as ebony, I don't know why one would do that.) Holly is certainly light-colored, and looks like it would dye well.

Does it have to be hardwood? How about something like a whitish poplar or western maple?

Did you check Lee Valley? They sell some dyed veneers.

I'd be interested in a follow-up.

Cary
Thanks for the pointer to Lee Valley. I hadn't thought of them but I checked and I probably can use their stuff. I'm looking for something to make decorative filleti (thin strips of veneer used in a border around a central design element) and wanted a variety or colors.

When I said "hardwood" I was constrasting it with softwood, which is the conifer type trees. So the way I was defining it, poplar and maple would be hardwoods, while pine or fir would be softwoods. While it seems strange, balsa would be a hardwood.

But it looks like LV has what I want so I'll go that way. I really appreciate your pointer. Thank you!

Mike

[Cary Swoveland]

Mike,

The May-June 1996 issue of Fine Woodworking (#118) has an article called "Expoxy Inlay". The author mixed graphite power with exoxy to obtain a simulated ebony inlay. He said you could instead use painter's acrylics or "universal tinting colors" for coloring. (I would think TransTint should work. It comes in various strong colors, which could of course be mixed.) To get rid of bubbles he flame-polished the epoxy with a propane torch. I've been wanting to try the technique myself, but haven't got around to it. This technique might not be appropriate for your present project but I thought it might interest you regardless.

Cary

[Doug Shepard]

Constantines has a few choices too
http://www.constantines.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=169

[Frank Drew]

Mike

I've dyed solid ash with great results, but depending on the amount showing there might be more grain than you want. Poplar, maybe?

[Tony Joyce]

Try this link as a source of dyed veneer. I've not used them but, they seem reasonable.
http://www.wood-veneers.com/veneer_dyed.html

Castello and Poplar seem to be the most commonly used veneers to dye. I've had a degree of success using water based aniline dye in a hot solution for several days(Black), then dry and use alcohol NGR dye bath to finish.

Tony

[Mike Henderson]

Mike,

The May-June 1996 issue of Fine Woodworking (#118) has an article called "Expoxy Inlay". The author mixed graphite power with exoxy to obtain a simulated ebony inlay. He said you could instead use painter's acrylics or "universal tinting colors" for coloring. (I would think TransTint should work. It comes in various strong colors, which could of course be mixed.) To get rid of bubbles he flame-polished the epoxy with a propane torch. I've been wanting to try the technique myself, but haven't got around to it. This technique might not be appropriate for your present project but I thought it might interest you regardless.

Cary
Cary - thank you for the sugestion. I've done something like this when doing inlay in solid wood - I used powered black dye and mixed it with epoxy. I did a dining chair with a strip of ebony in the arm. When I got to the front of the arm, I wanted a sharp curl - too sharp to do with the thickness of the ebony I was using. So I stopped the ebony and did the curl with dyed ebony. You can not see where the ebony stops and the epoxy begins - well, maybe if you know what was done and look really close.

This doesn't work as well when doing veneer. When you do veneer, you lay up the veneer and tape it together with veneer tape. When you have the panel complete, you glue it to the substrate. It would be impossible (or very difficult) to lay in colored epoxy prior to the glue up. It might be possible to leave a gap in the veneer lay up and then fill it after gluing but my experience with using dyed epoxy is that some of the epoxy gets on the surrounding material and has to be sanded off. This works fine with solid wood inlay because there's lots of thickness of wood, but with veneer you risk sanding through the veneer.

Doug - I found Constantines but they didn't have all the colors I wanted. But thanks for the pointer.

Frank - thanks for the suggestion of Ash. I have some and will try dyeing it, just to see how it comes out.

Tony - thanks, I'll check them out. Looks like they have a wide selection. And thanks for the species suggestion for dyeing.

Mike