I’ve been sweating how to color match a band of sapwood in an absolutely gorgeous piece of old-growth air-dried walnut.  I wanted to use home brewed dye made from walnut husks but couldn’t find them.  Color matching is something that has always caused me hours and hours of gut-wrenching grief.  It’s just not my strong suit.

 I decided to bite the bullet and put together a complete kit.  I bought a “Finisher’s Color Wheel” and 11 of the 12 colors on it in Transtint water-soluble dye.  (No white).  I also bought (11) 8 oz. plastic bottles with pointy tips.  Next I went to the art supply warehouse and picked up two round tip water color brushes (1 small and a large #12).  I went for the ‘cheaper’ ones which still ran about $25.

 I went home and spent a couple of hours labeling the bottles with the P-Touch and mixed up 8 oz of each color.  About 1/2 of them were labeled with the color wheel color and the corresponding Transtint dye color name so I could keep them straight at refill time.

 I spent 5 minutes matching the color of the walnut bordering the sapwood to the wheel.  I mixed-up 4 teaspoons of dye, diluted it 2:1 and painted out the sapwood.  Dried it with a hair dryer and did a little damp rag blending.  Repeat.  Added a couple of drops of the brown dye and painted it a few grain lines with the small brush, dried it and hit it with the damp rag to soften.

 Shot 2 coats of Enduro and I wouldn’t be able to spot the sapwood if I didn’t know where it was.  My ‘kit’ took a ½ a day and $160 but at this moment I feel the it was worth twice that in stress reduction off this one piece alone.