Today the PRS was sanded to 400 grit, the grain raised, and the first wash of turquoise dye applied to the front veneer and basswood body. To pop the grain in the veneer I used a variation of the one-pass dye method I have used in the past. In this method, you get a first pass of dye over the entire body, then while it is still wet, keep washing over with more dye, not letting it settle in any one place. The theory is that dye is taken up more by the figure than the plain wood. Today I varied this process by bringing in a clean cloth to soak up the excess dye from the non-figured wood after each subsequent dye wash, allowing more to be put in the figure only. The technique seemed to work well. Here is how the flame veneer came out:
The "turquoise" colour created using a 1:1 mix of blue and green Colortone dye is very hard to photograph. Without the flash it looks blue, with the flash it looks green. To the human eye the colour sits somewhere in between the two. I've included both versions for you to compare.
The basswood was another story completely. I managed to get a pretty weak wash coat of dye over the entire body.
The colour, however, is pretty weak so far and it will need at least one more going over with a much stronger mix. It is interesting how the various figures in the basswood have popped with the Colortone huh?
The "turquoise" colour created using a 1:1 mix of blue and green Colortone dye is very hard to photograph. Without the flash it looks blue, with the flash it looks green. To the human eye the colour sits somewhere in between the two. I've included both versions for you to compare.
The basswood was another story completely. I managed to get a pretty weak wash coat of dye over the entire body.
The colour, however, is pretty weak so far and it will need at least one more going over with a much stronger mix. It is interesting how the various figures in the basswood have popped with the Colortone huh?
No comments:
Post a Comment