Dying Pen Blanks

[Jmhoff10500]

Hey! I stopped by CSUSA today to see some of their new blanks they had on display! The ones that really caught my eyes were the dyed Buckeye Burl ones and it got me wondering, how do you go about dying a pen blank?

I did a quick search, an tried a few methods like food coloring, CSUSA dye, and some other things but only got about 1/16" of penetration into the blank... From there i kicked it up a notch and did the same thing at 60PSI pressure, but even then i still only got about 1/8 inch of penetration...

What do i try from here? Vacuum, different dye, smarter brain?

 

[David Keller]

No personal experience, but I think much, much higher pressures are needed. I'm not sure full penetration can be achieved with home casting pots.

Now if you rough turn them and drill them, you might be able to achieve complete penetration with pressure or vacuum.

 

[Jmhoff10500]

OOh, yeah! i never thought of turning it thin before attempting it... would you want to tube it, rough it out, then dye it? or dye it before you glue the tube in?

No personal experience, but I think much, much higher pressures are needed. I'm not sure full penetration can be achieved with home casting pots.

Now if you rough turn them and drill them, you might be able to achieve complete penetration with pressure or vacuum.

 

[David Keller]

I'd put the tubes in after coloring... Otherwise you'd seal the inside of the blank and prevent the coloring from entering from within. I'd love to see some photos if you give this a try.

If you turn it round and drill it, you'd be able to color roughly 1/4 inch of wood(1/8 from outside and 1/8 from inside). I'd cut the blank to tube lengths, turn them between centers, drill on the lathe, and then hit the color.

 

[Jmhoff10500]

Definitely! i have some buckeye burl that has the deep black streaks thru it. maybe the black streaks will mix with the coloring and give me cool color variations in the blank... Thanks!

I'd put the tubes in after coloring... Otherwise you'd seal the inside of the blank and prevent the coloring from entering from within. I'd love to see some photos if you give this a try.

 

[ldb2000]

Ok , I gotta ask . Why do you need the dye to penetrate the entire blank ?
I've always found that you can't see much deeper then the first 1/16" of a wood blank anyway .

 

[Jmhoff10500]

At the time, that was the only way i thought to do it... Then the turning thing came along, now im starting to think i might want to do a batch and get it all over with... I guess for me it would just be nicer to have a few whole blanks in my stash instead of having to turn each one before breaking out the dyes every time... (this was my 500th post!!!)

 

[ldb2000]

To each his own I guess . I prefer to turn and see what the blank looks like before I decide what color I want it to be . The 5 seconds it takes to add the dye don't really add any time to the finished blank and I like being able to adjust the color saturation on the fly .

 

[Jmhoff10500]

Thats probably what im going to end up doing, thanks for sharing!
It just baffled me for a while to see how its done, and the experimenting was a fun learning experience!

 

[pensmyth]

I agree with Butch,
I tried dyeing the entire blank with very little penetration. Then I just turned the blank to finished size, dye it the color I wanted by wiping the dye on the blank, let it dry over nite and finish. So far has worked fine for me.

 

[RAdams]

I remember reading a walkthru on how to stabalize wood and wonder if a similar result could be achieved with dye. It seems like the idea was to put the blank in a vaccuum and let it set in the solution until it sinks. Then it is finished. Might be worth a shot.

 

[skiprat]

I'd agree with Butch too. You might also find that the wood looks really nice once turned to size and would look best with a clear finish, without dye. If you dyed it first by the batch, then you might find that when you got it to finished size that it needs more dye in places anyway.

Although 1/16 is pretty thin, unlike Butch, I've never been able to see beyond the surface of a wood blank. But he is pretty good at this sort of thing!!!:tongue:

 

[Robert A.]

I've been planning on dying some myself.Would it help to seal the end grain with "ca" so the dye does'nt penetrate and make the ends too dark?

 

[jason_r]

See my notes on dye penetration under vacuum.

http://www.rziha.net/woodworking/experiments/dye_penetration/

 

[witz1976]

I believe a good person to ask is Constant. He does dying and stabilization...I believe he said it takes an insane amount of pressure.

 

[RAdams]

See my notes on dye penetration under vacuum.

http://www.rziha.net/woodworking/experiments/dye_penetration/

We must have read the same article on stabilizing! Thanks for the link. It was interesting reading!!