# Looking for double dying tips



## Gixxerjoe04

Recently got into the stabilizing addiction and looking for any tips on double dying blanks. I see people posting amazing blanks on facebook but most do it as their income and won't give any tips, so figured I'd see if anyone here wants to help out. Have been messing around with it, getting the first dye to standout along with the main one seems to be my problem.


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## rocky1

@Sprung


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## Sprung

Joe, I've got a few secrets in this realm that I like to keep close to my vest, but I'll be happy to help.

First off, as a starting point, what technique(s) have you tried thus far to get the first color in? Also, some pictures of your attempts would be good. A face or two cleaned up with a little sandpaper and a spray of DNA or the likes would also help.


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## Sprung

rocky1 said:


> @Sprung



I was already typing when you tagged me!

Reactions: Like 1 | +Karma 1


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## The100road




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## Don Ratcliff

It's okay @Sprung I got this.

Step 1. Take a bunch of great blanks and put them in a FRB.
Step 2. Send to Matt with the deal of getting them dyed and half sent back to you.
Step 3. Wait patiently for months.
Step 4. Buy blanks that are already dyed from someone on Facebook.

Easypeesy...

Reactions: Funny 7


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## DKMD

I’ve never stabilized anything, but if I were going to try double dyeing...

I’d start with a blank that has some varying density and a light/white color. Maple burl and box elder burl come to mind.

I’d try using a darker color with a simple soak or a short time under partial vacuum... think brief exposure. I’d follow that with a full vacuum with a lighter color and leave the blanks to soak under vacuum in the second color. Blue first followed by yellow or purple followed by pink.

No idea if that would work, but that’s how I’d try it.

Reactions: EyeCandy! 1


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## Sprung

Don Ratcliff said:


> It's okay @Sprung I got this.
> 
> Step 1. Take a bunch of great blanks and put them in a FRB.
> Step 2. Send to Matt with the deal of getting them dyed and half sent back to you.
> Step 3. Wait patiently for months.
> Step 4. Buy blanks that are already dyed from someone on Facebook.
> 
> Easypeesy...



What can I say, but life happens... This week was the first time in months I got to run my vacuum pump... But, hey, they're all done now, lol. Gotta bring them in from the garage - I cured them last night - and sort out which ones are yours.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## gman2431

Don Ratcliff said:


> It's okay @Sprung I got this.
> 
> Step 1. Take a bunch of great blanks and put them in a FRB.
> Step 2. Send to Matt with the deal of getting them dyed and half sent back to you.
> Step 3. Wait patiently for months.
> Step 4. Buy blanks that are already dyed from someone on Facebook.
> 
> Easypeesy...



In step 2 replace Matt with Cody, In step 4 replace Facebook with woodbarter and also add gman2431 and I'm here to help ya!!!


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## Don Ratcliff

gman2431 said:


> In step 2 replace Matt with Cody, In step 4 replace Facebook with woodbarter and also add gman2431 and I'm here to help ya!!!


I cannot get my wood out of Minnesota, I would be very worried to send it even farther into the artic where you live. If I get the courage I will take you up on that one day...


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## Spinartist

One of my woodturning students, Cindy, buys wood off fee-bay. This is half of a triple dyed , stabilized blank she bought that she gave me as a gift!!

Reactions: Like 1 | EyeCandy! 4 | Agree 1


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## CWS

Spinartist said:


> One of my woodturning students, Cindy, buys wood off fee-bay. This is half of a triple dyed , stabilized blank she bought that she gave me as a gift!!
> 
> View attachment 141057
> 
> View attachment 141058
> 
> View attachment 141059


She's a keeper, just needs a little training. Better than a pair of socks.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## gman2431

Don Ratcliff said:


> I cannot get my wood out of Minnesota, I would be very worried to send it even farther into the artic where you live. If I get the courage I will take you up on that one day...



........ Oh man... 

Let's start with your stint here where you were an "upper" we call yoopers... I live below that on the other peninsula that's also part of Michigan. Which also happens to be well below where all your wood is!! Silly islanders....

Reactions: Funny 1


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## Don Ratcliff

gman2431 said:


> ........ Oh man...
> 
> Let's start with your stint here where you were an "upper" we call yoopers... I live below that on the other peninsula that's also part of Michigan. Which also happens to be well below where all your wood is!! Silly islanders....





Still hanging on to that are ya. I was 13 for crying out loud and you know WTH I was talking about...

Reactions: Funny 2


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## gman2431

When your 13 in the UP you should be able to fell trees and mine iron ore all in same day... 

And I'm still way South of all your wood dyed or not!

Reactions: Agree 1 | Funny 2


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## Don Ratcliff

I did mine ore and logged back then. Even planted trees getting very proficient with a hoedad and through all that I learned I needed to use my noggin because the back was not gonna make much money for long.

Reactions: Like 2


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## Gixxerjoe04

Sprung said:


> Joe, I've got a few secrets in this realm that I like to keep close to my vest, but I'll be happy to help.
> 
> First off, as a starting point, what technique(s) have you tried thus far to get the first color in? Also, some pictures of your attempts would be good. A face or two cleaned up with a little sandpaper and a spray of DNA or the likes would also help.


Sorry for not responding, never got any notifications about people responding, only saw all the responses bc I was about to bump it up haha. Anyways, have only tried twice. People said to just generally soak a blank for like 30 minutes as the first color, cure then do a second, full vac like normal. Thought that seemed like it wouldn’t work well. Tried with a curly maple pen blank, didn’t work at all. Next I tried a box elder Burl blank(need to buy more haha). I put the blank in a pan 1/3rd covering to the wood in red dyed juice, put it under vacuum for like 10 minutes or so I think, cured then full vac in blue. Seemed like if I did a short vac fully submerged it’ll work better, and experiment with times under vac and soak for the first color. I didn’t get any red on the inside really when I cut the blank in half. Was happy somewhat of how it came out though, just bc some red showed haha.

Reactions: Like 4 | EyeCandy! 1 | Way Cool 1


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## rocky1

You're headed in the right direction!

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Sprung

Joe, you've got a good start. Honestly, 30 minutes is far from a long enough soak time for the first color, but you are on the right track giving it a little vacuum time first. Some of my first double dye attempts were kinda like yours - looked real good on the outside, but once I opened them up I found the color barely penetrated. Played around with vacuum and soak times and started getting the results I was looking for. For the first color, no matter how I'm soaking the item in the dye (partially or fully submerged), it gets a little time under vacuum and then soaked before curing - depending on the wood and the size of the blanks, I'll soak the first color anywhere from a few hours to a couple days before curing it and running it under full vacuum for the second color.

Reactions: Like 1 | Informative 3


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## Gixxerjoe04

It just sucks experimenting on nice wood since you can't really practice on something you aren't actually going to use. It also sucks it costs so damn much haha, plus I bought a bunch of awesome looking dyes but it takes a lot of juice if you want to mess with a bunch of colors haha. Waiting on an oven tamer and another gallon of juice, should have ordered 4. What temp do you all cure at?


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## Steve Walker

@Gixxerjoe04 
I have a crap load of punky salted maple 2x2's I would consider sending you for practice. We can figure out a trade of a few coming back my way after stabilized. Let me know.


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## Gixxerjoe04

Steve Walker said:


> @Gixxerjoe04
> I have a crap load of punky salted maple 2x2's I would consider sending you for practice. We can figure out a trade of a few coming back my way after stabilized. Let me know.


Got any pics?


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## Steve Walker

Not handy, but will post some for you in a trade thread tomorrow

Reactions: Like 1


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## rocky1

180o f. for 2 hours.


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## Gixxerjoe04

@Sprung you ever dye stuff black? Saw a lot of people saying it’s a pain, would have thought it would be easy.


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## Sprung

Gixxerjoe04 said:


> @Sprung you ever dye stuff black? Saw a lot of people saying it’s a pain, would have thought it would be easy.



Black is a pain. The thing with black is that it is a pigment based dye, meaning tiny grains of powder, rather than a true liquid dye like all the other dyes that Curtis has listed in the stabilizing section of his site. The pigment can't get into the wood really well.

There are some who are getting outstanding results with black, but they are using a different dye. I've yet to figure out what dyes those are. But black is something I do plan to spend some more time experimenting with.

Here are my best results I've had with black dye thus far. This is some Boxelder Burl that was fairly well soft.

Reactions: Way Cool 1


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## Gixxerjoe04

Ahh I was wondering what the deal was.


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## rocky1

White falls in that boat to Joe, it too is pigment based.


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## Gixxerjoe04

Of course I've got all this wood I want to mess with but ordered the oven tamer with a gallon of juice, the tamer not being an immediate shipment means no juice until it's ready, of course I'm hoping it ships soon since it's been almost 2 weeks.


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## Gixxerjoe04

So I tried a new double dying technique, didn’t work then I kind of screwed it up by cutting it and stabilizing again. Screwed up some of the colors(not awful but they don’t book match anymore). Teal green is cool though. After the fail, I altered my plan and it came out pretty darn good.

Reactions: Like 1 | EyeCandy! 6


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## Gixxerjoe04

My fail was teal green then blue, sucked up too much green and didn’t take any blue. Then I cut in half, thought it’d be a good idea to put back in blue and try again, certain little spots took the blue in each blank but not the same.


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## DKMD

Looks like you’ve got it figured out!


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## Glenn Lefley

The first pic is a 6 inch round 3 inch thick blank, the sec pic is a one inch slice into the blank, the inside of the lid. Vacuum stabilized just once.

Reactions: Like 2 | EyeCandy! 4 | Way Cool 1


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## VotTak

I do not think that even your "failure" as you call it is a failure... You do 2 colors and in the places where these 2 colors intersect you will see kind of mixed colors as you basically have 2 colors and each of those is baked in the wood but it is less concentrated than usually and it interact with another color... it is very clear on this red/blue(and maybe violet?) example... you see violet in that intersected area... it is accepted for alumilite dyes.
It would be very nice if we could do colors which have better color separation... Is it possible? Again... probably... but probably difficullt with alumilite dyes... probably difficult with all the woods...
Sometimes you will get interesting results with spalted burls especially where you have punky area separated by spalted line from live area... this "live"areas are usually more dense wood and will be colored differently and you might see color separation which goes along spalting line...
Also another dyes might work differently... I just started to use new dyes... will see how that works...
Unfortunately this hobby is very expensive and experimenting is expensive as well....

Reactions: Like 2


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## robert flynt

Scott, try dyeing some flame box elder green, using two bottles of Alumilite dye per gal. of stabilized, will look like camoflage. Have you considered drilling a small hole down the center of the block? It will help penetration of dye and stabilizer and the stabilizer should fill it when cured.

Reactions: Like 1 | +Karma 1


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## Brian K

After pulling vacuum and soak for at least 3 days, I let the blank air dry for a few hours then wrap it in foil and bake at 190. PS, I use Cactus Juice to stabilize.


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## rocky1

Don't wrap, use the foil to create a drip tray. Bake at 180o, you'll save yourself a great deal of sanding.

Reactions: Like 1


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