RIT dye for wood?
#8
I make scrollsawn Christmas ornaments every year. Once & awhile I'll paint them, more often, I just leave them natural and spray shellac on them. This year I'm thinking of trying to use dye to color them. RIT dye says it can be used for wood. I cut the ornaments out of 1/8" Baltic birch ply and am trying to achieve sort of a "washed" look. I don't necessarily want a solid color, or I would just use paint. I've never used a dye before, so there will be some trial & error testing to be done first, but I wondered if anyone here might offer some sage advice on using this stuff?




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If you are going down a river at 2 mph and your canoe loses a wheel, how much pancake mix would you need to shingle your roof?

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#9
I've been looking at the very same thing. I'll be interested to read your observations. I imagine light fastness is a major consideration. RIT is definitely attractive from a price perspective. Writing that last sentence also gives me one more thought. I wonder how concentrated it is. It isn't really a bargain if the concentration is low and the competition (more expensive) has high concentration.
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#10
I've tried RIT and haven't cared much for the results. For me, the colors weren't intense enough and the effect was like a stain with big color particles hanging up in the pores of the wood rather than the more even coloring you expect with a dye. You can always try one color and see what you think. Be sure to let it dry and put a finish over it before you judge - dyes tend to look washed out without a clear over the top. Mostly I've used the water soluble powders sold at all the woodworking shops. All the brands I've tried have been good and its very easy to mix colors. Get black, blue, yellow, and red and you can make just about any other color.
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#11
I bought some pre-mix RIT, in red & green, at the fabric & craft store the other day. It looks like the bottle has a spray nozzle of some kind on it, so it can be applied that way, or poured out or applied with an applicator. I'm thinking I'll try the spray method first. If it goes on reasonably evenly, without being too heavy, that would be ideal for this particular purpose. As for the color and colorfastness, this may actually work in my favor, at least in this application. I want kind of a washed look, more like stain than paint, and I'm thinking about trying to use multiple colors to give more of a rainbow look to the ornament, so I'm OK if the colors aren't quite as bright and vivid as would be desired in a different project. I chose the pre-mix because I had read about problems with the powder not dissolving completely and maybe contributing to the problem of it accumulating in pores. Baltic birch doesn't really take stain all that well, so I'm not sure what dye will look like, but the ornaments are pretty small, with a lot of detail cut out of them, so not much surface area for blotchiness to be a big problem.

Thanks
If you are going down a river at 2 mph and your canoe loses a wheel, how much pancake mix would you need to shingle your roof?

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#12
Paul K. Murphy said:


I've been looking at the very same thing. I'll be interested to read your observations. I imagine light fastness is a major consideration. RIT is definitely attractive from a price perspective. Writing that last sentence also gives me one more thought. I wonder how concentrated it is. It isn't really a bargain if the concentration is low and the competition (more expensive) has high concentration.




Are you going to mix it with water or mineral spirits. Water will raise the grain. I've used RIT for fabrics (with water). I'd be interested in the results of your tests.
No animals were injured or killed in the production of this post.
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#13
I used yellow food dye once to color a maple apple I made as part of a set of turned fruit. I didn't have any yellow Transtint and needed to get it done so I used the food dye, which I bought at my local grocery. It worked great and hasn't faded appreciably in the 3 or 4 years since. I topcoated it with GF's HP Poly which may have something to do with the color not fading.

John
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#14
I was thinking of mixing it with water, immersing wood veneer in it, and vacuum infusing the veneer with dye. The (small) flitch would then have to be dried, and blah, blah, blah.
This process would be in order to prep dyed veneers for marquetry work. Perusing an earlier comment has piqued my "buyer beware" sense. From the description of an earlier poster, I am forming the idea that this material would likely be a poor fit. I shouldn't be surprised. You do get what you pay for.
For all I know the stuff is terrific, it's dynamite, splendid. However, the earlier post about lack of intensity, large particles, etc. has me saying to myself, "What did you expect?" I think perhaps I will not bite.
There are other dyes, and I'm gleaning quite a bit about that these days. Old European recipes, and also the use of pigments extracted from fungi (the type that spalt wood).
Anyway, I don't have to know/act now. No urgency, no big deal.
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