What colors to have my wood dyed - bunch of maple

M

Maelstrom78

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Sep 21, 2013
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I've got enough birds eye maple cut up into oversized scales ready to send in for stabilization.

Enough for several dozen blades. I'd like to keep some natural and some dyed or double dyed.

What color recommendations would you all recommend? I really like the yellow dyed maple burl I just used. I've heard black turns out nice too.

Thanks!
 
black and brown both turn out well. some people like blues/greens/reds but they aren't for me. If you like the earth tones try black and brown. To be honest, I like black more than brown.
 
If they are for yourself then choose whatever you like. If the scales are going on knives that will be sold then natural colors like black, brown and yellow will be your best sellers. On the Burl Source website, a lot of the pieces he had dyed in colors like green, blue and other funky colors sat around for a while and were eventually reduced to clearance prices.
 
With getting the wood dyed, you don't really know how it will look until it is done. The individual pieces of wood determine the results and the end results are hard to predict.
You don't get to do color matching like with paint. The stabilizers will have colors like brown, gold, black or other basic colors.
Areas of gold and orange in maple tend to resist the dye resulting in random colors.
Myself, I think that is a good thing. Amongst my customers blue was the most popular color for 2015.
This is an example of a batch of maple burl dyed blue. All were dyed in the same batch.
19b-097.jpg
 
Cool. Yes I agree that the areas responding differently to the dyes ads great visual interest. So far I think I'm going with natural, yellow, black and a little blue. Maybe a couple of sticks of brown just for kicks. I've got about 30 scales worth to send in so I can play around a little bit.
 
Brown is probably the best color to dye maple. It seems to highlight the burl and figure without overpowering it. It all comes out a mixture of earth tones. This keeps the "organic" value off a wooden handle.
Next are black and red.
Red is surprisingly attractive in maple, and does well on kitchen knives. I have my wood stabilized/dyed 40% natural, 30% brown, 10% black, 20% red.

Ask said, the color will vary. Brown often comes out as tan on maple. Red can be light red to pink. Black can be a range of shades and greys.

Blue is OK ( I just don't use much of it), and as Mark said, popular. Green never looked good to me.

On highly figured Box Elder burl and some Buckeye burl, double color dying is worth the extra cost. You never know what it will end up looking like, but I have never been disappointed.
 
I have some figured/fiddleback type maple, some maple burl, and some spalted maple (more cool colours and lines than fancy grain or figuring) that I want to get stabilized.

I can see why I might want to dye the fiddleback and burl...but will I get some neat results having spalted wood dyed too?

Thanks
Randy
 
Burl Source said:
With getting the wood dyed, you don't really know how it will look until it is done. The individual pieces of wood determine the results and the end results are hard to predict.
You don't get to do color matching like with paint. The stabilizers will have colors like brown, gold, black or other basic colors.
Areas of gold and orange in maple tend to resist the dye resulting in random colors.
Myself, I think that is a good thing. Amongst my customers blue was the most popular color for 2015.
This is an example of a batch of maple burl dyed blue. All were dyed in the same batch.
19b-097.jpg
Click to expand...

How much for the blue and black one sitting on top of the others farthest to the bottom left. Looks like the number is 2567 or maybe 2647.
 
bodog said:
How much for the blue and black one sitting on top of the others farthest to the bottom left. Looks like the number is 2567 or maybe 2647.
Click to expand...

You don't follow Mark's site I take it. Wood like that lasts him about a day, if not hours. That batch has been long gone I'm sure.

I have some maple that I am going to have dyed and I was thinking black and brown. I personally like the blue on burl myself, but I do have some non burl blocks died blue that people seem to like. My thoughts are if its a kitchen knife that is going to appeal to the masses, I think different colors can help.

-Clint
 
Burl Source said:
As long as the wood is still solid, not punky.
Click to expand...

Punky doesn't stabilize well because it crushes/compacts under the pressure/vacuum of the stabilizing process right? A couple of the pieces of dowel my students made were a bit punky and those pieces came back more oval shaped than round. I'm guessing something similar happens with a block of wood that is punky.
 
But this question....if it is a solid piece of spalted wood that isn't super figured or mottled (like burl) ....grain is straighter...is dyeing likely to add anything?

Randy
 
Augus7us said:
You don't follow Mark's site I take it. Wood like that lasts him about a day, if not hours. That batch has been long gone I'm sure.

I have some maple that I am going to have dyed and I was thinking black and brown. I personally like the blue on burl myself, but I do have some non burl blocks died blue that people seem to like. My thoughts are if its a kitchen knife that is going to appeal to the masses, I think different colors can help.

-Clint
Click to expand...

Yeah, I do. That's why I'm asking him now instead of waiting. But thanks.
 
I'd like to ask as well - some of the pieces have a mix of the heartwood (I'm assuming? - it's darker) in the wood which is darker. I assume that they will take the dye up differently but both should take the dye correct? Should I even send the darker wood out to be dyed?
 
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