Dyeing Red Oak

[Tonto]

Wonder since folks have success with box elder and maple if anyone has tried to dye red oak blanks. The end grain has large visible vessels that would appear to enable colorant to be carried into the wood under either pressure or vacuum. I just came into some scraps that are nice but plain and wonder if this is the time for the pressure pot.

 

[bitshird]

Remember Red Oak is very dense, I would make sure that it was bone dry, turned close to shape with out a tube permanantly glued in and vacuum it thoroughly hold the vacuum for several hours then slowly release the vacuum, do it a couple of times, try and use a spirit dye, the natural oil from Oak will repel a water based dye, if it works, it should look pretty nice, keep us posted. Feibings leather dye might work good, it works great on dry curly maple, but thats a whole different beast.

 

[barrels]

I have been turning a lot of Oak recently and I dyed one just to see what happened. I used Trans- Tint dye. After I finished sanding I applied the dye finish and it turned out very well. The oak took the dye evenly and absorbed most of what I put on. I did not vacuum just applied the dye with a white cloth as the blanks were spinning on the lathe

 

[LandfillLumber]

The rays in oak when quarter sawed take dyes very nice. You can really get the rays to pop, It has made me appreciate oak again. Not sure about anything other then applying it to furniture. I have used the water based transfast dyes. Keep us posted as to how it goes, Victor