Dying Zebrawood

I would be interested to see examples, as well.

I milled some zebrawood fretboards and I was thinking about trying to dye some. I haven't gotten around to making any samples, but if I do, I'll post pics.

 

I would go for toner coats instead of directly applying the dye. The density fluctuates the same way other woods that dye splotchy do. However, I haven't done it myself, as I went natural in my last zebrawood top.

 

Yeah, mix some aniline or transtint into some nitro and spray. I didn't feel the zebra wood was overly oily, personally. Certainly not like coco or bocote.

 

I've never tried to dye zebrawood but just from trying to dye other exotics that "feel" similar, I probably wouldn't ever try. It's not so much the oil as it is the density changes. You just get uneven penetration. Sealing the wood and then spraying tinted clear coats pretty much gaurantees even coverage of the color no matter what.

 

You can add tint to a "brush-on" clear, to get the color you want, then use a rattle can for the top coat.

 

Down at the bottom of the page are some examples:
Anyone ever dyed zebrawood?



This one is from "Spenser Interiors":


This one's got some good chatter plus images of test pieces at the end:
https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?175721-Need-help-finishing-Zebrawood

 

You could try this for mixing up your own tinted clear coats. I believe HD has Deft lacquer in pints or quarts you can mix TransTint dye into. PreVals are a little expensive but for a couple of instruments, cheaper then a spray rig.

Preval 9 oz. Complete Spray Gun-267 - The Home Depot

 

Well, if nothing else, those threads and pics show that it takes dye pretty nicely IMHO. It seems fairly even, not blotchy, and seems to be able to be saturated well.

 

I have no first hand experience, but what about gel stains?

 

I have used tinted danish oil on zebrawood to redden the color a bit, and that worked very well. I wouldn’t think about wholesale dying it another color - Zebrawood is beautiful to me.

 

Dwizum is right.

 

I 2nd the idea of a tinted clear coat through a PreVal.

 

Hello. Actually you're talking about dyeing.

 

those images are funny. ZW actually looks like the upper right picture that they claim is bleached not the upper left that they claim is natural. The density difference is annoying though. goes from the light wood -like blue cheese, to the dark wood -like pau ferro.

i suspect that you are trying to do something unusual judging by the lack of hard data, so buy some stuff and experiment.