# Question about dying with Cactus Juice



## BeeAMaker (Jan 10, 2018)

I'm experimenting with using dyes in CJ to create multicolored blanks. Like this one I did a few months ago.






The one pictured I simply placed the blank into yellow dyed CJ and let is soak up the yellow CJ, then placed it in Purple dyed CJ and placed it under VAC for 24 hours.

Surprisingly it didn't VAC all the yellow dye out and replace it with Purple, and it didn't seem to mix. What I am wondering is if I just got lucky, or can I expect this result each time? 

Should I soak it in one color first, then cure it before VAC in another color to ensure they don't mix? Is there info some place on doing multicolored CJ blanks? How would you go about doing this?

Thanks


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## MrResinBlanks (Jan 10, 2018)

BeeAMaker said:


> I'm experimenting with using dyes in CJ to create multicolored blanks. Like this one I did a few months ago.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Personally I always cure between colours 









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## BeeAMaker (Jan 10, 2018)

MrResinBlanks said:


> Personally I always cure between colours



Very beautiful! awesome blanks.

Do you just soak, or do you VAC each color?


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## Gary Beasley (Jan 10, 2018)

From what Ive read you just soak for your first color, then vacuum on each next color for progressively longer time with a cure between each cycle.


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## MrResinBlanks (Jan 10, 2018)

BeeAMaker said:


> MrResinBlanks said:
> 
> 
> > Personally I always cure between colours
> ...


In those I have posted they were all vac on both colours. That being said the 1st colour was not fully submerged so in some part was starved of getting fully coloured.

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## Dehn0045 (Jan 10, 2018)

Cool looking blanks guys, thanks for sharing your experiences.  Gonna be getting come CJ soon, so dying and double dying  hopefully won't be in the too distant future.


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## BeeAMaker (Jan 10, 2018)

My main concern is to make sure I get CJ saturated throughout the piece. Will curing the first soak impede this process?


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## robutacion (Jan 10, 2018)

BeeAMaker said:


> My main concern is to make sure I get CJ saturated throughout the piece. *Will curing the first soak impede this process?*



No and yes, it depends considerably on the type of wood you are working with, if you soaked the full blank and pulled the vacuum and then cure it, any other colours won't penetrate.

There are various ways to multicolour blanks while stabilising, again, the wood used will determine what method will work better, any soft or panky woods are the easiest to work with, some medium woods work better than others and very dense woods, you won't get any colour through them.

Drip system on softwoods is in my view the best method to introduce various colours into a piece of wood, the results can be spectacular, such as these blanks,



Good luck...!

Cheers
George


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## BeeAMaker (Jan 11, 2018)

Thanks George! good info, love the 3rd blank.

I'm only pulling the VAC on the second color. I have 2 test pieces. the first I am soaking the first color, then curing, pulling the VAC on the second, then cure again. The second piece I am going to soak then pull VAC on the second before curing the first. I want to see what different effects I might get.

It will probably be a few weeks, but I will post my results here.


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## tdsmart (Jan 11, 2018)

robutacion said:


> BeeAMaker said:
> 
> 
> > My main concern is to make sure I get CJ saturated throughout the piece. *Will curing the first soak impede this process?*
> ...



What is the "drip system", George?  Is it as the name implies just dripping died CJ onto different areas of a porous blank?


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## menglor (Jan 16, 2018)

Curtis pointed out to me, one of the  many things I was doing incorrectly.

1 - dont cook over 200, the juices will flow out.

2 - after vacuuming, let it soak in the juice twice as long as it was under vacuum.


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## BeeAMaker (Jan 19, 2018)

OK< 
These pics suck so bear with me lol.
The colors are washed out in these pics, but the color yellow and purple are the same on both logs. Funny how the purple is washed out on one and not the other and visa-versa.

Anyways,
The first log was soaked in Yellow 1/3rd of the way for 24 hours. Cured then submerged in purple and VAC then soak. After that cured again.
The second log was soaked in Yellow 1/3rd of the way for 24 hours, NOT cured but submerged in purple and VAC. Then cured.

I thought for sure the second log would come out looking sh*t brown because the remaining dye sure looked Sh*t brown. But to my surprise, it don't really look any different than the first.

Seem odd to me, but it appears the dyes won't mix once saturated in the wood. I know it is hard to tell in the pics (I should have shot them side by side but not able to now) they really don't look any different when held side by side.


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## BeeAMaker (Jan 19, 2018)

Hummmmm curious.

The reason I can't re-take my pictures is because I have the second log back in the VAC using un-dyed CJ. IT still had some areas that didn't appear to get saturated so I decided to VAC it again with clear. My clear CJ now has a purple tint to it and when all the tiny little bubbles came to the surface, those were purple as well. Does uncured CJ brake down cured CJ? The log was in the oven at 200 for 2 hours, it should all have cured so why am I now getting purple tint?


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