Help - my blue stabilizing resin didn't!

[rblakemore]

I need some help and am confused and lost. I used 8 drops of alumilite dye in about 1 quart of StickFast stabilizing resin. Nice and blue (see the vacuum chamber pict) went for a good while and saw virtually no color in the wet blanks. I went ahead and baked them and have a coat of blue resin on them; but, the blanks are basically not colored.
So,
am I way off on the concentration?? A lot more dye?? Is there another source of dye for stabilizing?? Should I just attempt to use very strongly concentrated dye directly and stabilize after with clear resin?? Reading more I am finding powder dyes (KEDA??) that are mixed in DNA, is that the route to go?? Did I waste my resin???

 

[nascrdad]

It takes a lot more (like 30+ more) to start getting it blue. I use almost a 1/3 of the bottle to get a good deep blue.

 

[robutacion]

I can 2 possible causes, one is definitely the amount of the alumilite dye you used, it needs a lot to get a medium blue and for a dark blue well, I use 1 full bottle of dye in a 1 gallon Juice.

I have discussed this exact situation on some stabilization threads/posts, I could not believe you dark the juice has to be to transfer some decent amount of colours into the wood, did I manage to get a deep blue..?? I sure did, look attached pics...! Don't despair, you will get if the next time, and will be no Juice throwing at all, you just keep adding blue dye until you get the colours you want, but as I and others have said, you can't be generous with that dye. I don't know how many drops one of those bottles has but, you can work it out but volume and or weight.

I don't know how much an empty bottle will weight (I have some in the shed if necessary), I have already told you the amount I used to get a decent blue so, you work out the volume of Juice you want to dye and calculate the amount of dye that way...!

The other issue that, may have something to do with no signs of any blue to be seen in the wood is that, you may not dried the wood sufficiently, and unless you do, the dye will not penetrate much at all...!

Cheers
George

 

[Monty]

Definitely not enough dye. I use about 1/3 to 1/2 a bottle of alumilite dye to a quart of CJ.

 

[terry q]

Same experience here. Red ended up pink. Green is sort of ok. Blue too light. I upped the amount of dye in my mixes as well.

 

[bsk295@hotmail.com]

My blue comes out green. I guess it is mixing with the yellowish color of the buckeye burl. Has anyone tried bleaching the wood with clorox bleach, drying and then color stabilizing? Also, would doing a first dye in white resin, bake and then stabilize in a dark color work?

 

[low_48]

Household bleach won't do much to wood except adding moisture. If you want to change the color of the wood, use a two part wood bleach. Most everyone pays extra for color in buckeye. Can't help you with stabilizing and dye.

 

[MesquiteMan]

You do not have near enough dye. Eight drops per quart is doing nothing for coloring your resin/wood.

 

[robutacion]

I can also tell you that, with the Alumilite dyes (the ones I use from Curtis), the blue does tend to become green(ish), even if you use lots of blue dye.

The best dark blue I get is when I mix 3 parts blue and 1 part red dyes, the red will push the blue into a purple however, in these referred quantities the blue resulting is a lot darker then if I mixed 5 dye bottles into a 1 gallon of Juice.

You folks try it and let us know the results...!

PS: Hope this helps:wink::biggrin:

Cheers
George

 

[ElMostro]

My blue comes out green. I guess it is mixing with the yellowish color of the buckeye burl. Has anyone tried bleaching the wood with clorox bleach, drying and then color stabilizing? Also, would doing a first dye in white resin, bake and then stabilize in a dark color work?

Add a drop of black and you'll get a darker blue.