# Wood dying.



## turn81 (Jan 28, 2017)

Does anyone here have any experience with dying wood for blank segments?  I prefer to use natural wood and I would like to experiment with dying to add some color.  Specifically, I have a police officer friend that I would like to gift a pen to with a blue segmented band.   Any suggestions would be appreciated.  Thanks!


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## jttheclockman (Jan 28, 2017)

Unless you have access to a Vac system it will be tough to dye your own woods. I suggest you buy veneers which you can get from a billiard vendor or even Woodcraft or m,any other wood vendors on line.. or use some blue acrylic as the inlay. Many people have made the thin blue line pens for police officers and even the thin red line pens for firefighters and they do it in acrylics and they look good.


www.woodcraft.com/products/dyed-mix...tm_term=162241&utm_content=Woodcraft Shopping


www.wood-veneer.com/dyed-veneer.php


www.constantines.com/dyedveneer.aspx



www.wood-veneers.com/veneer_dyed_chart.html


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## magpens (Jan 28, 2017)

ExoticBlanks.com .... has just added a new line of wood dyes which look very good on the website but I have not tried them. . These are alcohol-based dyes.

I have had quite good success using water-based aniline dyes which I bought from Lee Valley Tools, but available elsewhere too.

Once you have cut/glued/turned your segments and before they are finished you can color (carefully !!) with Prismacolor pens which are alcohol-gased. . I have done this and it actually works very well depending somewhat on the finish you apply. 

You can also cut your segment pieces from dyed box elder burl blanks which you can buy in several colors.
I have done this several times with good success.

I believe you can buy dyed wood blanks from PSI and other places.

For example: https://www.pennstateind.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SEARCH&q=double+dyed+buckeye+burl
https://www.pennstateind.com/store/WXBGK99.html

There are other dyed wood pen blanks you can get, such as these:

https://www.exoticblanks.com/Terry-...ilized-and-Dyed-Red-16-18B-Please-Choose.html


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## farmer (Jan 28, 2017)

*Blue*



turn81 said:


> Does anyone here have any experience with dying wood for blank segments?  I prefer to use natural wood and I would like to experiment with dying to add some color.  Specifically, I have a police officer friend that I would like to gift a pen to with a blue segmented band.   Any suggestions would be appreciated.  Thanks!
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Penturners.org mobile app



Take the veneer to a trophy shop and have  them cut washers out of the sheet of veneer with there laser engraver ..

The maple veneers get wavy when dyed .

https://www.cuesmith.com/colored-veneers.html


I had to dye some wood purple the other day .  Found nothing online .

I ended up using clothing dyes ....
I mix the dyes in denature alcohol .


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## stuckinohio (Jan 29, 2017)

I have been using a lot of water based dyes that I get from woodcraft. Water based dyes are great and you can do a lot of crazy colors. The key is it must be closer to the final diameter because even though the dyes are thin and they soak in way better than stain, they still don't penetrate.

But, if you're doing thin slices and dye them once sliced I think they will penetrate thoroughly from the end grain because it is very absorbent.

Lewis


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## dogcatcher (Jan 29, 2017)

I use alcohol based leather dye by Feibings.  They have all the colors and then some. DO NOT buy the oil based leather dye, it will work, but you will like the alcohol based a lot more.


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