Kevin Hancock writes:
The water base stain thread reminded me of a color challenge I
had last month.
I had just reproduced a walnut bed and was faced with matching
air dried solid walnut with kiln dried walnut plywood. I wish
I had taken a picture of the bed before finishing, but I
forgot. Picture #1 is a shot of the two types of boards that
make up the bed. The cabinet grade ply had beautiful grain and
depth, but was quite a bit grayer then the air dried stock.
(also quite pretty) Picture #2 is of the boards wet with water.
Most of us know that color matching with these differences can be done with shading or glazing in the finishing stage but at the risk of loosing clarity and depth of the grain. I wanted to get the color matched before sealer. I mixed a Transtint dye in alcohol (one ounce dye concentrate per quart of alcohol) as close to the color of the solid walnut and sprayed it on just the plywood. The color of the dye was pretty close to a mahogany dye. I then sanded these boards with 320 and reasonable pressure and followed with a second coat of the same dye sprayed over the entire bed. Once dry, I sprayed one coat of Sealcoat and topped it with a nice build of gloss NC lacquer and a final coated in satin. The color match turned out real good and all of the wood grain stands out as if there was no colorant added. Pic #3-4 are of the finished bed. The wife was pleased.
Kevin Hancock
an occasional woodworker
Most of us know that color matching with these differences can be done with shading or glazing in the finishing stage but at the risk of loosing clarity and depth of the grain. I wanted to get the color matched before sealer. I mixed a Transtint dye in alcohol (one ounce dye concentrate per quart of alcohol) as close to the color of the solid walnut and sprayed it on just the plywood. The color of the dye was pretty close to a mahogany dye. I then sanded these boards with 320 and reasonable pressure and followed with a second coat of the same dye sprayed over the entire bed. Once dry, I sprayed one coat of Sealcoat and topped it with a nice build of gloss NC lacquer and a final coated in satin. The color match turned out real good and all of the wood grain stands out as if there was no colorant added. Pic #3-4 are of the finished bed. The wife was pleased.
Kevin Hancock
an occasional woodworker
