I normally do natural wood when I do my veneer boards. But I have customer who wants a tinted wood. I did one in the past. I think I just used watered down acrylic. 16 years ago so I don’t remember. I believe I did the color after the vacuum bagging. But in recent years I know that when bagging resin pulls through the skins. That wood would not subsequently accept accept tint. I also typically do some tune up sanding after bagging on the skins. That would sand off the tint. So I’m kind of wondering how to approach it this time. Any thoughts would be helpful.
Here’s the photos of the previous board. Sorry about the watermarks. I called it the “Guitarfish” because it was inspired by a Gibson sunburst guitar finish.
Back when I was member of a LB skateboard build forum, several would color their wood with dye before adding any finish to the wood.
They used aniline dyes — pretty sure they were water based. I believe aniline dyes are used to color wood guitars because they highlight the grain patterns.
I have often wondered if alcohol ink would work for wood — might not be suitable though.
As always, test panels are your friend…
BTW very nice color work in the board photo above!
Thanks Stonenurner. For sure test panels. Come to think of it I might have used RIT fabric dye which I just googled is part aniline and they also have a particular product which is all aniline.
Alcohol based stains penetrate deep into wood. I am pretty sure that alcohol based stains are what is used to stain wooden stringers. In another life we sometimes used alcohol based stains to stain and lacquer cabinets. The story that went around was that it penetrated deep enough that if the wood was sanded or planed the color persisted. Fiebings ProLeather Dye.
I did some re-reading about aniline dyes for wood. They say that analine dyes in alcohol dry quicker than aniline dyes in water. End result is that water-based aniline dyes penetrate deeper.
I guess test panels would be the best way to answer that question for sure.
I haven’t tinted the wood, but I did use a tinted resin when I laminated my compsand balsa board. I did one with a yellow tint and one with a blue tint. This is the bottom of the yellow board, the rails are painted.
