I made a bookcase out of maple plywood and solid maple for the faceframe and mouldings. I used water soluable dye (antique maple – warm yellowish color) to try and harmonize the color difference between the plywood and solid wood. The sample boards looked good but the case (plywood) had reddish splotches in some areas when it dried. I tried diluting the dye and reapplying it to try and remove/blend the red, the reds were lighter but appearred in the same areas. Is it possible that the veneer is thin and a glue layer or another layer of a different species is showing through? Any suggestions on what I can do would be appreciated.
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Replies
Did the samples include the plywood?
Yes I had sample boards of ply and solid. No reddish areas appearred on the samples.
Don't mean to sound insulting, but have you applied a finish over the dye? WB dyes look much different until top coated with some sort of finish.
The veneer layer from the manufacturer is likely pretty uniform in thickness. But it doesn't take much sanding at all to develop thin spots.
If you have some more excess plywood, prep the same then thoroughly wet with distilled water. If no red spots showing through, I'd look for another cause than the sublayer or adhesive.
I have not applied the top coat yet. Just trying to resolve this problem before proceeding. I'll give it a try on an interior portion of the case and see what happens. Thanks for the input.
To Don's point about what the dyed plywood looks like under a finish it is very true that dye changes dramatically when a top coat is applied, though I would still not expect dye to show different colors on different parts of the same wood.. But don't be too eager to top coat it yet. You can approximate what it would look like under a finish by wetting the surface with naphtha or mineral spirits.
The other question is how to fix the problem, which could well be due to defects in the plywood, at least if it were other than high end stock, and especially if it came to you by way of a big box.
You can further lighten the dye by wetting with water. You could even use chlorine bleach to remove almost all the dye color.
My apologies for not thinking of this last night. The dyes I use, from Homestead Finishing, are a mix of colors. If the powder wasn't completely dissolved, and a red crystal landed on the plywood, in theory it could then dissolve producing a localized red. Don't know if that's a legitimate possibility though.
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