How do I dye Cactus Juice brown (walnut)

[ctfolmar]

I have some white wood I plan to stabilize with Cactus Juice. The wood is quite plain and monochrome. I think it would be decent if I was able to dye it brown to look like a naturally darker wood. I have some MinWax Medium Walnut stain that I really like, but from what I read, I'm guessing Cactus Juice and wood stain don't mix. I will not be turning it, so it needs the color throughout the blank. Cactus Juice does not offer a brown color that I can find. Anybody have any ideas on how to dye this white wood brown? Thanks for your input.

 

[Dehn0045]

My first thought is: buy some nice walnut burl and stabilize that. I wouldn't take the time or spend the money to stabilize anything that isn't top tier quality wood (aside from a piece of wood that has some sort of sentimental value). And I certainly wouldn't dye wood to make it look like wood I can buy.

That said, my thinking is that using wood stain is not the best idea. Wood stain has a lot of organic solvent that probably wont play nice with the CJ. And it will take a lot of stain to color the CJ (compared to a few drops of dye). Also, I believe that the particle size of the stain prevents it from penetrating very far. I would only use dyes specifically designed for wood stabilizing. You can try dunking a piece in stain without CJ and pull a vacuum on it and see how much penetration you get (though I doubt you will get very low on the vacuum because the stain will start to boil). If its good then dry it out and stabilize it.

 

[ctfolmar]

You are probably right about just buying the wood. Sometimes I get so caught up in trying to figure out how to do something, it doesn't occur to me it would just be better and cheaper to go buy something.

 

[budnder]

Alumilite dye will work - they have a brown:

Alumilite Dye - 1oz Brown

Use Alumilite’s Dyes to color your casting and stabilizing resins! The dye can be used in the clear resin to make a translucent colored casting, to Alumilite white resin to make colored opaque colors or to wood stabilizing resins for vibrant and constant colors.

www.exoticblanks.com

On using Alumilite dye with CJ:

Alumilite colors and Cactus Juice?

Any recommendation on how much color to add to cactus juice when stabilizing? say i want to make a quart of red how much red Alumilite dye would be a good starting point to to make a quart?

www.penturners.org

 

[Fuzzy63]

Pen state also sells a pack of color dyes and it has brown in it. I have used it and work for me.
Gary

 

[Jarod888]

Mix green and red dye together, you will get a lovely shade of brown. Vary the mixture to get different tones and values.

 

[ctfolmar]

Thank you all!