Aniline Dye Help

[Mitchell]

Seeing tis is the first time I have ever used this I figured I would post some questions.

The package says to use distilled water so I will do that

Should I get a wood alcohol to rub down the body first?

Now........how much of this little bag of dye should I pour into the warm water?

How many times do you have to apply the dye?

The destructions say to apply the dye to pre moistened end grains to prevent them from taking in too much of the color. True??

Any other tips?

[Musiclogic]

you should rub the wood with alcohol to remove any oils from your hands, or any impurities on the surface. It basically cleans it. You can use denatured alcohol.

Dye to water ratio is dependant on how much total dye the packet is said to make? Packet should say how much dye it will make. That is how many ounces/liters of water for the whole packet. You will probably only need 1/4 of the total volume to do a body.

Apply the dye 1 time and allow to set for a couple of horus. This will give you an idea of the color, and you can darken it from there with more applications.

NOTE: Test the dye for color on a piece of scrap wood first!!!! This will help you to see the color before applying it to the guitar. It will tell you if you need to add more dye to the water, or more water to the dye mixture.

Moisten end grain....YES

2nd NOTE: If you are going to apply Lacquer or poly over the dye, the dye may seep into the Lacquer or Poly, thus making the color a bit lighter. If this is the case, you may want to dye the wood a shade or two darker to balance this out.

Hope this has helped a bit.

[Mitchell]

Thank you!

Its a 1 oz package of powder.

they have it at 1 oz to 1 quart of water and dilute this to the intensity of tint.


So I will do a quater of the package and a quater of a quart......

[Musiclogic]

that's exactly the way....Like I said, tes it out on a piece of scrap wood, an you'll see the color before doing the guitar. have fun with it.

[Paul Secondino]

Trust in the scrap test board formula. ONce you see it go on, you'll instantly know if oyu have your color or not. The ratios on the product are usually correct and you need ver little dye/solution to cover an entire body. It goes a long way. Normally, 1 bottle of powder or liquid dye will do 7 to 10 bodies

As far as end grain, it will never accept the dye as nicely as the top and back of the body so be preapred to do some color touch up spraying. After I stain and get 3 or 4 coats of lacquer on the body, I do some minor level sanding to smooth out the finish as much as possible .Then I add some of my dye solution (saved from initial staining) to my lacquer and use my touch up gun made by Sata. I keep the mixture fairly light and gently fill in some color over the end grain.With practice and a few thin coats, the touch up will be undetectable

ONe side note, I did my first strat body with stew mac stains which are good. However, I used their sanding sealer which sucked.It drew some stain out of the wood and prevented my lazquer coats from adhering fully to the wood. Ever since then, I avoided using sanding sealer and simply use normal lazquer to seal the wood. And I have never had a adhesion problem or bleeding problem since.

[Jazzdogg]

You didn't say whose dye you're using, but there is good information on the entire process posted on the website of the supplier from whom I buy my Transtint analine dyes:

www.homesteadfinishing.com

Good luck!

[Mitchell]

cool guys. Im off the next couple days.I will be doing it then.