# Dying turning blanks



## kweinert

As a packing peanut in one of my orders, someone threw in a short piece of blue dyed maple. My stepson used it in a call it was blue pretty much all the way through.

My question is about how to accomplish that. I know you can add color to cactus juice but the time I tried that (under vacuum) it didn't penetrate very far.

Is dying best used with some other transport method? Under pressure? Under vacuum?

I'm just trying to get some advice here and all input is appreciated.

Thanks.


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## Schroedc

I dye with cactus juice all the time. Dye penetration can vary but for the most part, if you are pulling resin all the way through you should get dye all the way through. But, I have had pieces that just won't take dye, some really dense woods and occasionally I'll get something that takes dye really well except for the eye burl or a knot or whatever.


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## TurnTex

Kevin,

A few things could have caused your dying and stabilizing failures...you may not have pulled vac long enough, you may not have let it soak long enough after releasing vac, or you did not have your dye/Cactus Juice ratio strong enough. To get good color in something like maple, you need a LOT of dye. When you think you have enough dye, add some more! There is no such thing as partial penetration of the dye only. In other words, if the blank is fully stabilized, the color will be all the way through as well. So, if you only got color in a short distance, then you did not get Juice in all the way either and that is a stabilizing technique issue. If you feel the blanks were stabilized well but "the color did not penetrate", your mix was way too weak.

When I do blue, for example, I add so much dye that the mixed Juice looks black. Oh yeah, this advice only applies to Alumilite dyes since that is all I use. I have tried others but none work as well for me as Alumilite dyes.


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## Alan Sweet

@TurnTex, I am very much of a novice when it comes to dying so forgive the naive question. Is there any sense in dying after stabilization. Or is it too late. I was wondering about dying after turning the stabilized blank down. But, from what I have been reading, it appears to be too late to dye.


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## TurnTex

Alan,

Dying after stabilizing would be futile IF the stabilizing was done properly. The objective of stabilizing is to fill as much of the empty space in the wood with resin to make it more impervious and resistant to changes in moisture, among other things. If the wood is properly stabilized, there will not be any room for significant dye uptake. Here is a picture of a piece of spalted pecan I stabilized and then soaked in strong alcohol based orange dye for 24 hours submerged. I then cut the piece in half to expose the center. You can see the outside is completely orange but the inside is mostly untouched. There is some dye penetration in the large bug holes which is to be expected since Cactus Juice does not fill holes.

Now, if you are talking about turning a piece of wood that has been stabilized to final size, then dying, that could be done. You would also need to fully sand it first too since the dye is only going to be on the outermost part of the blank.


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