For centuries, wood has been colored with chemicals and dyes. The question is: Why? The answer has remained the same: Chemicals and dyes enhance the color of wood and impart a deeper aged richness by accentuating the grain pattern in a way that stains and clear coat finishes do not.
As you will notice throughout this book, we refer to the process of “coloring wood.”
If there is only one thing that you take away from this book, we hope it is this: that you no longer use the words “dye” and “stain” interchangeably! They are two separate processes with two separate results. The one thing they share in common is that they both color wood . . . but with quite different effects. Chemicals and dyes color the fibers of the wood without leaving a residue. Light is able to travel into the wood and reflect back, revealing the grain pattern with a great degree of clarity. Stains deposit pigments into the pores of the wood and trap the light, which obscures the grain pattern.
Woodworker Lilly Plasencia wanted to do something outside of her comfort zone by trying some of the techniques she learned in Brian’s finishing class. Her oak table is spray-dyed with Arti-Dye #138 blue and then grain-filled (highlighted) with gold Cres-Lite metallic powder.
The base of Marci Slade Crestani’s table is actually made of maple dyed a deep brown color. She wanted the durability, weight and quiet grain pattern of hard maple but preferred a darker colored wood base to highlight the quilted maple top.
To illustrate the difference in terminology, it’s as if you ask someone what they are cooking for dinner, and they say, “I’m going to boil some steaks.” Then you ask someone else, and they tell you, “I’m going to grill some steaks.” Both steaks are cooked. But the flavor and appearance between the two is very different. So it is with coloring your wood with chemicals and dyes versus coloring your wood with stains. Chemicals and dyes improve the flavor of the wood without masking it as stains do.
Beyond the choice of coloring agents (chemicals, dyes or pigments) available, there are also a number of additional methods for coloring wood that are covered.
Wanting to give an old-world patina to the contemporary design of her walnut table, Marci Slade Crestani applied a solution of potassium dichromate to it.
The point of coloring your wood by any method or medium, however, is to take your project to the next level of craftsmanship. As you are about to discover, there are many reasons to color wood: to heighten or shift tones that are already present in the wood or to completely alter the wood’s color to the tone of another species or to let loose and play with non-wood colors. The results—as you can see by a few of these projects—are worth it.
An admirer of Charles and Henry Greene’s Craftsman designs, German Lucero made this stunning mahogany nightstand and wanted to recreate the Greene & Greene signature patina. Instead of using potassium dichromate as they did, German color-matched the chemical’s effect with Mohawk Ultra-Penetrating Stain (inaccurately named because it is actually a dye) Dark Red Mahogany and Raw Sienna.
Gene Leslie is not intimidated by working with sodium hydroxide (lye), having colored his kitchen cabinets with it. He applied a very mild solution of the chemical on this cherry box and colored the walnut sides with India ink.
Both of these quartersawn white oak boxes crafted by Tony Fortner were fumed with ammonium hydroxide for the same length of time. One is notably darker than the other due to the presence of more tannins in the wood.
