Replies

1. 
   geedubbee | Feb 23, 2025 02:56pm | #1

   When in doubt a barrier coat of shellac is your friend. For dyes I keep a few cans of Zinsser spray shellac on hand. Wiping shellac over dyes can smear things and make extra work for you.

   
2. 
   bilyo | Feb 23, 2025 03:13pm | #2

   From your statement, I'm not sure if I fully understand your issues with regard to "getting the right color with TransTint". TransTint is an excellent medium for that purpose. But, you need an understanding of color theory in order to get what you want. At best, it is a tedious process, but with the correct colors to start with and an understanding of how to mix them, you can get anything you want/need. I usually start with a ready mixed color close to what I need and then, using primary colors (red, yellow, blue, along with black for darkening) I mix with water in very small quantities until I get what I need. I suggest that you get a color wheel and a book on color theory.

1. 
   jharveyb | Feb 23, 2025 03:48pm | #3

   Thanks, Bilyo. I may need to go into the fundamentals like that at some point. I was using the ready mixed colors, and none were good starting points. The Fiebings looked like better starting points. I've known for years that color is not my strongest point, tho I'm much better than I was starting out. It doesn't help that the church is 90 miles away, and the finished woodwork was not done in a standard way. Very hard to capture accurately with a cell phone camera.

3. 
   jharveyb | May 03, 2025 10:49pm | #4

   I like it when OP's update everyone on how things turn out, so I'll do it too. Any of the dyes I tried would provide decent but not accurate color in some areas, but any more porous areas would turn out almost black from the density of the dye there. I tried various pre-stain materials, but couldn't get consistent non-darkening in all areas.
   So I went to a Sherwin-Williams nearby and showed them the cell phone pictures. Two guys independently thought it looked like a Minwax oil stain custom color, Aged Shellac. So I bought a quart, and it was much more amber than I needed. However, it mixed well with some Mixol pigments that had other aspects of the color I was looking for. I tried a bit of the Mixol in a small sample, and was encouraged enough to double the dose and try again. This turned out to be the right color, and was consistent in its coloration, as it had very little dark/black pigment in it. One of the keys was to sand the hand-plane-smooth surfaces of the yellow poplar with sharp 150 grit sandpaper in my RO sander, to get micro scratches for the pigment to lodge in in the denser areas. The other important key was to use two coats of the stain, as it gave a more consistent, deeper color than one coat alone. I think the evaporation of the solvent of the first coat left space for more of the pigment particles in the microscratches when applying the second coat. It definitely worked better than applying one heavier coat.
   It is interesting that, until this project, I hadn't used oil stains in many years, after discovering the advantages of alcohol based dyes. I did not expect to end up where I did, but kept trying different things until I found the two things I put together for the final result. I'll attach a picture of the cabinets assembled, with the solid wood panels (and the inside edges of the frames around them) finished as above before I glued the units up. I just today finished applying the second coat of stain to all the remaining parts of the cabinet.

   
1. 
   _mj_ | May 04, 2025 07:42am | #5

   Beautiful work. Matching new work to old is a nightmare. You've landed in an odd niche, making church furnishings. How did you land there?

   I have an image in my head of the cabinet interiors being diagonal boxes for wine bottles like the fancy backbars have.

1. 
   jharveyb | May 04, 2025 12:09pm | #6

   Not sure how much of a story you want to read, but here goes...
   For many years, I had a partner, who retired in 2016. We had 3 components to our business: family furniture, architectural oddities, and ornamental church work. Each had its own origins.
   I started learning woodworking about 1975 as a possible profession; built my shop in 1978 and was setting it up in 1979 when custom work started showing up. About 1981 a neighbor built a deck for a couple in Nashville who were looking for a craftsman to build them some cherry kitchen cabinets. They became my first patrons, for which I made several pieces of furniture. He was a doctor at Vanderbilt Univ., and introduced me to his friends, who became my next customers. That established the family furniture segment.
   In 1982, a friend needed a trim carpenter for his crew building out the interior of an old warehouse in downtown Nashville. I had just met my future wife, and agreed to work for him part time so I could spend time with my wife-to-be and come home to the country with money in my pocket instead of broke. We did a lot of stairway work in that building, including three spiral stairs, and other architectural work. That started the second component of our work.
   Thru the 1980s, we were purchasing our lumber from local sawmills, air drying it, and having it dry-kilned at a company in the next town that built church pews (and occasional pieces for the front of the church.) We had shown them pictures of our work, and around 1989 they won a job for a big church in Nashville that wanted a huge altar canopy as part of the work. It was totally over their heads, so they offered it to us. The agreement was that we would do the fabrication and installation, and they would do the hauling and finishing, so it would match the pews. The church loved it, and we have been working for them ever since (including the current cabinet project.) And we have worked for other churches in Nashville from referrals and recommendations. I had been accumulating carving chisels all along, and practicing on various projects, so when the church needed a baptistry rail made to match the altar rail, I was ready to go. That carving job got us a job making a 3/4 size reproduction of an antique English pulpit and matching communion table (and more work for that church.)
   The cabinets I'm working on now are actually for recycling church bulletins and other paper. They will go next to the exits from the church's contemporary services sanctuary and have a waste basket inside. They are the second set I've made; for a different church with very traditional church woodwork, they are the same size and shape, but with a totally different trim package.
   Rather than attaching pictures here, an incomplete but extensive collection of pictures of our work can be found by searching on FaceBook for "Dunmire Hollow Woodshop".

4. 
   _mj_ | May 05, 2025 11:38am | #7

   I see what you did there... canopy... over their heads...

   Not on FB, but running the same search on the googloe images tab got me there. A nice collection! I remember some of them from your past posts here.

   An interesting market, and one with the pockets to match the needs. Congrats!