The last several weeks have been consumed with building a final batch of folding stools (for now).
This time, I experimented with red and blue aniline dyes on birch since that’s the whitest wood I could find that was reasonably priced and suitable for furniture. Blue was shockingly effective—at getting blue everywhere. This stuff comes as a powder that can be best described as smoke. It’s that fine. Mixing just 2.5 grams into a pint of alcohol gets you the business end of a box of Sharpies in a jar.
The red wasn’t quite as saturated, although it also comes as a very fine powder that, when mixed up, was deep blood red. I was a little less careful with the red, and now my junky workbench (where we do tool cleaning and sharpening) looks like I butchered a large animal or something. Meh. It’s not my good workbench.
After the dye dried, I experimented to find the best next step. I usually start with shellac since it’s so forgiving and nearly non-toxic. But it’s solvated in alcohol, which reactivates the dye and creates a HUGE mess. The best solution turned out to be an oil-based sanding sealer.
Once the dye is safely sealed, you must sand (duh) because the previous operations have raised the grain. Then, on to a varnish (with a different brush because the one you used for the sanding sealer step will have some dye contamination). When that dries, it will look like shit. That’s OK. It takes more than one coat. So, now we sand and varnish until it stops looking like crap.
Usually, three coats do it. Between coats, there is a 6-8 hour drying time, and since these pieces don’t have an “inside,” that’s six varnishing sessions. Hence, all the whining about my small shop totally blocked up with this.
I made one red and one blue. For some contrast, the top and bottom rails are yellow. That was achieved with a couple of coats of amber shellac and then a top coat of varnish on birch. Maple would also work.
Below are some pictures. The stripy one is not dyed. It is bubinga and curly maple with a varnish top coat. Finishing these dyed stools is way too much work, so I am unlikely to do it again.
