Making curly maple "POP"?

[scottm]

Ive built a riser with curly maple and walnut.Im also going to grind some limb veners from the maple. Id like to accent the grain without darkening the wood to much.Ive ben looking at different alcohol wood dyes at binghams as well as other suppliers.What color would work best for what im trying to accomplish.Thanks Scott

[Roy from Pa]

I use aniline dye, comes as a powder and you mix denatured alcohol to dilute it. Charcoal Gray I like the best on curly maple. Thing about the powder, the less or more you mix in, you can control the shade of darkness. Even if you get the wood too dark, you can steel wool it lighter.

[scottm]

Thanks Roy!

[Trux Turning]

I use the same type of dye as Roy- left natural your veneers will pop when the glue is added. This one below had no dye added. Nice thing about figured maple is you can dye it and then sand off some of the finish if you need to lighten it up some- dark walnut is one I like to use.
 

[Roy from Pa]

I get the dye at woodworker.com, do a search for aniline dye there and the page comes up. Some mix with alcohol and some with water. I only ever used the alcohol type. When you apply it, it evaporates quickly.

[monterey]

I uded some MinWax "gunstock" (that is their color name) on some maple limbs.  The wood was very plain but the stain popped out some charachter that was not apparent before.

Looked like this.  Like I said, the wood showed no charachter whatever before the stain went on.

 

 

[Trapper Rob]

I use stains from Stonewall outfitters for my blackpowder guns I build they have a good many to pick from & if you call & talk to Troy he really tries to help.
Rob

[scottm]

Thanks for the help guys!

[jsweka]

Something to keep in mind if you are going to dye the riser is that some dyes, especially water based dyes will raise the grain.  To avoid this, wet the wood with a damp cloth, let dry, sand smooth again and repeat a couple times.  By the time you add your intended dye the grain won't raise anymore.

And like others have said, you can dye curly maple and then sand it so that just the "curls" pop.

[Roy from Pa]

Good point Johnny boy:) That's why I use the alcohol base. It dries in seconds.

[scottm]

Thanks again for the help!Im thinking the hardest part is going to be sanding the limb veners to the color im looking for.Maby stain one sideand sand to get the color i want while there still fairly thick then grind them to thickness from the back side?Ive seen people post that thay have had trouble with them curling when the dye hits them,and i would think they would be a nightmare to try to sand to color after they were ground to .025-.030.

[7 Lakes]

If you want the old Kentucky Long Rifle look use Aquafortis.  It can be obtained from "Track of the Wolf"

 

 

[rainman]

Use Asphaltum, and 18th century woodworkers way. It is tar thinned, wiped on, and scraped or sanded to the color you want.  Look at  www.flintrifle.com  to see an example.

[scottm]

cool!thanks!