Purple Dye...how to

[dmraco]

I am looking to do a purple finish.  Obviously red and blue make purple.  Instead or wasting a bunch of dye trying to get the combo correct, I thought I would ask the board or some possible ratios.

This is what I am trying to achieve.

Thanks

 

[Ace Flibble]

I've lost count of the number of things I've painted/dyed/stained/coated purple, though I typically go for a more blue shade than that. To me, that looks like a pretty even 50/50 mix, perhaps slightly leaning towards the blue by a tiny amount, with the natural wood colour making up the difference. Say, 40% red to 60% blue. I find with wood, any purple mixture always ends up being more red/pink than you first think, hence why I always go for a bit more blue to compensate.

I believe that exact finish is what Agile/Rondo call 'tribal purple', which means the wood has actually been dyed black first, then sanded back before the purple dye is applied. You'll want to do this too, if you intend to replicate that look exactly.

Though bear in mind that most people do not have calibrated computer screens, so how they view any given colour will always be a bit off in unpredictable ways. I'm a photographer, so I have my screen calibrated for perfect colour and to me, on this screen, that looks like an fairly even mix of red and blue with just the wood tone pushing the final colour more towards the pink end. If your screen is more warm/cool-toned, it may be that the colour you're thinking of is not that. You also need to remember that every piece of wood will have a very slightly different colour to it, so you're going to end up having to experiment/guess no matter what, anyway. As I said, plain 50/50 (or nearly that) would be my guess, but YMMV.

 

[dmraco]

Thanks.  You are right.  That is a tribal purple.  I have used the sandback method before.  However I may have to pass this time.  I am finishing a laminate top that is likely paper thin.  I am afraid I would burn through it.

 

[Ace Flibble]

You'd be surprised how little you have to sand back with purple. Purple usually comes through as such a strong and dark colour anyway, you don't need to dye and sand so many times over to get a deep quilt/flame. What I've done with flame maple before is to do it in just two stages; mix purple and black dye 3:1, sand that back very liightly and re-dye with plain purple. Obviously it's not quite as drastic as plain black and 3-4 layers, but it's still a significantly deeper look than you'd get with green, red, amber or whatever.

That said, you'd also be surprised at how much sanding a laminate top can take. Be careful at the edges, obviously, but the majority of the body can take quite a few passes before you'll eat through it. Stick to 220 grit or finer and it's quite hard to go right through the veneer.

I mean, hell, those Agile guitars are veneered.

 

[tangent]

I'd recommend using procion mx dyes.. they work well and are super cheap so no worry about wasting dye while mixing test batches of color.

With a really light wood like maple the color you get will be pretty similar to what you see on the staining pad (assuming you're using white cotton painters rags or old white t-shirt as staining pad)

I recommend mixing in a bit of solvent to help improve the penetration into the wood, ethanol works ok but ethyl lactate is much better if you can find it (klean strip 'natural multi purpose solvent' pictured is ethyl lactate). 

Procion mx dyes are commonly used for tie dying so can be found at many arts/crafts stores, the little jars pictured cost about $3 each and make enough dye concentrate to dye hundreds of guitars.  They are not as lightfast as metallized dyes like transtint, but that doesn't matter for a guitar which will spend most of its time indoors, its only really a concern if dyeing furniture which will be exposed to lots of natural sunlight.

Most of the instructions you see for procion mx dye assume you will be using it on fabric, for wood you can just mix dye + water (+ optional solvent) and apply directly.  No need to use soda ash fixative or anything else since you aren't washing the dye out of the wood like you would with fabric.

Attached pics show maple top and swamp ash both dyed with procion mx, on the back the left side has a coat of shellac which shows the color shift between raw dyed wood and once you put a finish on it.. approximating the color shift is the hardest part in trying to match a color.

 

[dmraco]

Thanks for the tips.  I am REALLY loyal to the Stew Mac liquid dyes.  I have every color so mixing is not an issue.  They can be used in water and alcohol.  I find when I need a deeper penetration I use water.  it lifts the grain more.

I will be only wiping on the black and then sanded.  The purple I will be mixing with the nitro and spraying.