A question about dying a burl

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dale

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Joined
May 18, 2009
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102
Location
Norwood, Missouri
A friend from church came over yesterday and said I have something for you. He then pulls out an oak burl. I cut it in some pen blanks and noticed it was also spalted.
Ofcourse oak is kind of plain so would you dye or color it or some of it I guess?

I dont know what to do. I know i could just turn it and let it go that way and may some.
But would you dye it say blue or green or what ever color?
dale
 

DurocShark

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Jul 26, 2008
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3,622
Location
Anaheim, CA
You have a couple options:

Ones with outstanding burl I would leave alone, or use BLO to help pop.
Ones with good burl, see above.
Ones with middling burl, experiment with BLO or food coloring or dyes after turned to final size.

The oak burls I've worked with have been tough to get good pens out of because of the open grain in the burls. I ended up with lots of filling. I thought about it too late, but using some cool PR might have been one way to go. And now I don't have any. heh

Food coloring works great as a surface dye if you want colors cheap. I've heard it fades over time, but I have a maple pen on my desk that's a year old done in red that still looks good. The pen sucks (heh), but the dye works.
 

Fred

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Feb 18, 2007
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3,557
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N.E. Atlanta, Georgia U.S.A.
Just look at all the shades of shoe polish that are available. I use the polish sometime to just enhance the color of the wood a bit.

I just preturn down to an almost finished size size, warm up the blank with a hot air blower, and then apply the polish in a heavy coating, and turn it onto the wood with a rag and bring it up in temp again to drive the polish deeper. Let it cool and finish as usual.

BTW, some polishes do react with CA similar to BLO so be careful and expect some possible heat. Boot creams seem to soak in a bit better, but I haven't used them enough to really have an opinion as to which is better ... the polishes or the creams. :confused:
 

Smitty37

Passed Away Mar 29, 2018
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Nov 23, 2009
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Milford, Delaware 19963
dipping

You can try a dipping stain once the barrels are finished simple to use and can be applied in as many coats as you want with just light buffing with fine steel wool like furnature....then a polish.
 
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