I’m weaning off of solventborne finishes (I hope) which means I need to reformulate new staining procedures based on all-waterborne finishing. I’m leaning to using Target’s Hybrivar as a top coat and some kind of premixed dye stain such as Trans Tints. Shellac is also a likely part of the workflow.
My first goal is a warm, dark chocolate stain for steamed Walnut with just a LITTLE hint of red. My preference is not to rely, if possible, on top coat color-shading to achieve color depth, but rather by using multiple, if necessary, stain coats. Spray or spray and wipe is my preferred method of stain application. Has anyone had success with this?
Thanks.
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Replies
If you are going to start with a pure dye step, then don't make it with a TransTint because just about any top coat will redissolve the dye since it dissolves in just about all solvents. But if you use a water soluble dye, then shellac over it would not redissolve the dye. This isn't too big a problem if you are spraying the topcoat over the dye, though you might well want to dust on the first coat to act as a bit of binder for the dye without wetting it enough to move.
There are lots of possibilities, for example, you could spray an alcohol soluble dye for very little grain raising, follow with an oil based pigmented wiping stain and your waterborne topcoat.
If you wanted more of the coloration to come from the dye, you might mix the alcohol dye with a light cut of shellac for the first coat instead of straight dye, so that the wiping stain would have less overall effect, mostly affecting the pores. You could even use a waterborne wiping stain, since the shellac bound dye wouldn't let the stain raise the grain. Spraying the waterborne top-coat wouldn't be likely to disturb the pigmented stain very much. Definately an advantage of spray application since a wipe on or brush on application might well disturb the relatively weak binder in the waterborne stain.
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