Does anyone ever stain a turned blank?

[vbritt]

Does anyone ever stain a pen blank before finishing the blank? I have some walnut wood blanks that do not look like what I expected them to when I buffed the blanks using the Beall Buffing System. I was thinking about applying a Black Walnut stain and then using the Beall Buffing System or the EEE along with Shellawax after the stain dried. Does anyone have any experience attempting this?

 

[KenV]

Hi Virgil - Welcome to IAP
If you are planning to color a turned Beall Buffed blank, be sure to wash the wax out of the wood with mineral spirits and a brush.

Stain is a pigment that get into the openings and pores of the wood and with the carrier forms a thin film on the surface. Stains are not transparent. They can be thin paint.

Dye is color that penetrates the wood and colors it, but is transparent.

More commonly the stain or dye coats are covered with a sealer and a finish is built up.

I have seen some friction polish applications work -- and some streak. It is matter of skill and art.

Safer is to spray with krylon and them apply what ever finish you want over the krylon.

 

[Super Dave]

I have used different color dye. I have used a CA finish or a few coats of clear lacquer. You don't want the color to wear off, it's just on the surface. You could use a vacuum chamber to get the color all the way through, but that's another project.

Dave

 

[Wood Butcher]

Yes, I have stained wood blanks. I used gel stain and allow it to dry for a couple of days then apply a coat or two of thin CA to seal it in. After that you can build the finish as you wish. I also have stained corn cob and had good success with that.
WB

 

[wouldentu2?]

Yes I have dyed and then stained oak to give it that Arts and Craft look finished with CA it looks great. Did some Walnut to get it darker also, obviously you need to let it dry before applying the top coat.

 

[mmayo]

Staining blanks

I had a project that took very heavily weathered teak wood from the rail on a long range fishing boat and used it to make pens. The wood was sun bleached and some brown stain made it look like the rest of the boat with beautiful varnished teak wood. The raw teak also had a nasty (IMO) green appearance that needed a remedy.

Before:

After:

Now I think I will use stain and some light coats of spar varnish to impart more yellow before CA finish. I have some diagonal cherry that may get some stain before finishing it too.

 

[low_48]

I prefer dye, and top coating with CA or other film type finish. I would be afraid of a thin friction finish like you are talking about on top of stain. It will wear off pretty quickly. I also double dye, black dye on first, heavily sand with 320, then dye with another color. The first three from the left are double dyed, the last one on the right is just dyed.

 

[sbwertz]

I often sand to 400, then put on a little wiping stain and let it dry, then sand again with the 400 taking off almost all the stain, but leaving it in the softer parts of the grain. The result is very like marble. Then I micromesh and finsh as usual.

This isn't a very good picture, but all the reddish parts are a chestnut stain I applied to a mulberry blank, then sanded almost off.

 

[ClutchCargo]

I prefer to use a dye on the highly figured burl on my closed end cigar pens in order to replicate the look of tobacco leaves. Dye accentuates the grain better than a surface-level stain, providing a richer and deeper look to the figured wood. Once the dye is dry, it takes a CA finish beautifully.