Can someone give me a retail source or brand name of some dye stains? It seems that Minwax is basically a pigment/dye stain. Before I spend more money to “find” a pure dye stain, I was wondering if you can point me to a brand.
I know I can make one but I would prefer to buy ready made dye stains if available. My goal is to get a stain that penetrates and reduces the strong contrast grain look that I get with oak. I read (Bob Flexner’s book) that dye stains are best for this.
Is Cabot stain any good? My local lumberyard sells that one. Obviously the Home Depot sells the Minwax. My Sherwin Williams dealer sells it too.
Sorry for basic questions. While I’m pretty good with paint and home carpentry, I’m just starting out with wood finishing. I have some oak wood trim I’d like to stain.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Replies
Moser sells aniline dye stains in three types ... water based, oil based, and alcohol based. The stain comes as a powder and you mix it when you use it.
Woodworker's Supply carries this and there are a multitude of colors available. I did a quartersawn white oak mantel and used their dark fumed oak color (mixed it with BLO). Beautiful.
John
You are probably looking for TransTint dyes. Available at Woodcraft and many other fine woodworking supply stores. Made in the hometown of the Cleveland Browns.
http://www.homesteadfinishing.com/htdocs/TransTint.htm
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Sherwin Williams sells a dye stain line as well as a dye concentrate line that is universally soluable. It's roughly comparable to Trans Tint.
I use the SW dye concentrate line, personally, and really like them. You can reduce them with a number of different solvents, from water to various Glycol Ethers. Reducing it with Glycol Ether PM yields a nice wipe stain that stays open for several minutes without any of the grain-raising that comes with using water.
Lately I've been doing a lot of stain samples for several clients. I've found that the dye concentrates are easily added to M.L. Campbell's WoodSong II alkyd wiping stain to create custom colors that perform very nicely. It's recommended that if you go this route that you add 20% by volumn of Glycol Ether PM to the wiping stain to ensure that the dye disperses properly and stays in solution in the alkyd stain. This is the first time I've tried adding dye stain to pigmented wiping stains. In my opinion it works very well.
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