Transparent Colors (dyes)

Any special considerations or tips for using dyes? I've never used them before, and I'm going to re-cab my little Vox DA5 into a pine cab w/ a bigger speaker, just for fun.

Below is a pic of what I'm aiming for- probably red, yellow, or green...
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c218/ruger9two/MountainAmps.jpg

I would seal the wood with clear lacquer or sanding sealer then stain with colortone dyes or dye of your choice. Followed by a couple of coates of clear lacquer. I like the Stewmac colortone Waterbase dyes and Waterbase Lacquer.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it best to go water based on bare wood, and solvent based on lacquer?

Stew-Mac is where I am getting my products.

I said dye of your choice..What I meant really is brand of your choice. I used the water based dye both ways. Waterbased directly on wood or Waterbase sanding sealer, then dye in waterbase clear lacquer, followed by clear lacquer coates. Both work well but I had more even color over the sanding sealer.

So you're saying, for example... If I were using RED, put the sealer on, then dye, would actually be MORE red than going on bare wood?

No, Red would be deeper color directly on wood. However on something like pine sealing the wood first wood give a more even looking color in my opinion. Now that's not to say it will not look good going directly on the wood. Get a piece of pine and try a sample both ways.

Thanks Flynman. Exactly the info I was looking for.

Oh- one last question... do you usually spray or brush or wipe the laquer on? (My father-in-law is a big fan of the wipe-on poly, I generally brush on, but now we're talking laquer so...) I do have extensive experience finishing/staining/poly/shellacing furniture, so I'm no rookie, I've just never worked with the laquer before.

I belive Home depot & Lowes have a brush-lacquer. Your local paint store might have it also. I have not used the Brush-on stuff, but I know there should be a few posts on here that would answer your questions. I am finding stewmac Waterbase spray lacquers to be the easiest to work with and clean up.

Thanks again.

No, Red would be deeper color directly on wood. However on something like pine sealing the wood first wood give a more even looking color in my opinion. Now that's not to say it will not look good going directly on the wood. Get a piece of pine and try a sample both ways.

+1. Pine is pretty much guaranteed to splotch and soak up the stain unevenly so it's imperative that you use some sort of spit-coat or prestain conditioner first. This is nothing more than a thinned coat or two of your topcoat material so it will find the areas that want to soak up the finish and seal them a little so you can get an even coat over it. Quite frankly, there's no reason you can't just put the color in the first few topcoats after it's been sealed. it's not like pine is some gorgeous wood like mahogany or curly maple where you need to accentuate the grain.

The only thing keeping you from tinting your topcoats is if you don't have spray equipment, but you could try a Preval small-batch sprayer.

Take a look at a mail order store called homestead finishing. The Transtint dyes are concentrated and can be thinned out with water or alcohol or mixed into either water based or solvent based lacquers. Pretty cool, huh? (same stuff as the Stew Mac Colortone dyes it seems).