Custom Staining

The need for making a custom stain has been holding things up a bit, but today the dye concentrates arrived and I mixed up the first batch. Which I think is pretty close to what we want.

Having already tried an initial test, I'll do another tomorrow to tweak the process a bit. Tomorrow's test will be layered as follows:

1. 5% solids by volume wash coat, to seal the wood (maple gets blotches if it's not sealed before staining) This is a diluted sealer. By adjusting the dilution you can change the depth of color from the dye stain in step 2.
   
2. My custom blended dye stain (roughly 12:1 water to dye ratio)
3. Second wash coat.
4. Oil based wiping stain, to deepen the color and even out the overall tone of the wood, while accenting the grain a little.
5. Sealer
6. Top coat

Even though I'll only be doing the test on a small sample piece, I have to set up and spray each coat exactly as I will on the final pieces. If I don't use the exact same application methods, the results will vary too much.

In other news, the doors arrived today, all 50+ of them. So, once the stain is approved, I'll be changing gears and staining doors for most of next week, so as to get them done and out of the shop (Since I have so little storage space).