Dying Wood

[hrigg]

I prefer to make pens from wood that's already the color I want, but I also want to learn to dye wood so the color penetrates completely through to the pen tube. Don't want to be turning and be surprised by uncolored wood. I'm thinking I should drill the hole in the blank first, put the pen in a liquid dye, then somehow apply a vacuum, but then I'm stuck.

I have an HVAC-industrial strength vacuum pump, hoses, fittings, and a whole bunch of wood to practice on. What I don't have is a suitable vessel, or much of a clue how to apply the vacuum to it.

I'd appreciate any help anyone can give me. I looked through the library, and through the tips forum, but if there's a tutorial, I missed it.

Thank you.

 

[DocRon]

In my former life as a working person, back in grad school days, I did a lot of vacuum impregnating of porous materials. Get a Harbor Freight pressure pot, or an old pressure cooker, or something capable of withstanding the vacuum ( lots of advice here on that). Put the wood and the dye solution in, apply the vacuum to draw the air from the wood ( allow enough room in the pot so that the resulting foam does not bubble out into the pump). Then release the vacuum and the atmospheric air pressure will force the liquid into the pore of the wood. Repeat a couple of times. Bear in mind that, depending on the uniformity of the pore structure in the wood, there may not be complete or uniform penetration.
Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[hrigg]

Thank you. That's exactly what I was looking for.

We'll see how it turns out.

 

[loglugger]

Hrigg, I use a quart olive jar inside of a gallon pickle jar for a vacuum chamber. The quart jar keeps the mess out of the big jar and the pump and you can see when the all of the air is removed from the wood. Like Doc Ron said bring to and release the vacumm untill all the air is out of the wood. on some woods it might take 5 times or more. Luck to you.
Bob

 

[hrigg]

Thanks, Bob...that's a good trick to know.[]

Harry

 

[Fred]

If you get the Harbor Freight pressure for for painting it will take the maximum vacuum down to almost -30 inches of MG and it will also take up to 80 pounds of pressure if you ever need it to.

Watch for the item to go on sale as it often does and then get it. Search the Forum for articles on how to set the tank up and go to it. Have a blast doing your own thing.

BTW, predrill your blanks with a size or two smaller drill bit and pre-turn the blank down to a comfortable sizt before you do any thing in the paint pot. This sames time, chemiclas used, and will let the wood be stained or whatever you are doing to it a lot quicker. READ all the posts on the Forum concerning stabilization or dying and then after you get confused then start asking questions.

Good luck to ya! []

 

[Glass Scratcher]

Fred,

You mean this one from HF that is listed online at the sale price?[]

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93119

Harry, print out the page and take it into your HF and they should honor the price. Next question is will your local HF have one in stock. I waited for a year to get one (well 2 actually - tanks not years) from my local HF. They got them in, in time for the last sidewalk sale. They only got in 4 tanks and I was standing at the door at 6 am waiting for them to open. The youngster running the place has seen me so often and had me pester him about these things that he kicked the doors open a few minutes early told the registers to go ahead and start ringing people up. I was the 1st one in and coincidentally the 1st one out, but I had a buggy full.

Sorry if I sounded like I was gloating.

 

[jack barnes]

I just ordered the paint pot cost me $ 48.98 total with the shipping, Now I just have to tell the wife I just couldn't live without it.

Jack

 

[hrigg]

Thank you for the additional information about sizing the blank, and for the link. I was at HF yesterday and they didn't have any. May just order it on-line and avoid the hassle.