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So a quick project for the wife! Thought I would try something a little contemporary as far as the design, even tried my hand at inlaying some purple heart. Used some hard curly maple. To pop the grain I used a water/transtint dye with a 150 grit sanding in between two coats to get the right color and absorption, then some GF Seal a Cell and finally 3 top coats of GF Arm a seal.

Criticism welcome!

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Really nice rack, a different style.
That beautiful hook is expensive isnt it?
 

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Nice rack! and the Maple is nicely popped. Do you have a link to What transient dye you used?
 

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Woodworm: I ended up finding the right hook at lowes surprisingly enough, 4 came on a piece of crappy pine painted white for $19 so ended up being around $4.75 a piece..

poroskywood:
You can get this stuff at Rockler or Woodcraft, I used vintage maple, .5oz of dye to 16oz of distiller water
check out this site:
http://www.joewoodworker.com/transtints.htm

thanks
 

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I really like your design and the second picture really shows the Curly Maple. Beautiful build and finish.
 

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Very elegant coat rack
Sharad
 

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Jason,

I appreciate the link to those dyes - l'd like to give them a try as I love to work with maple, but the spouse prefers dark contemporary finishes.

Thus, my question: seeing you used water as the solvent, did you raise the grain pre-emptively or just after the first dye coat?
 

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Scrabby… with the dyes you can make it as dark as you want by changing the ratio of water to dye mixture. Want it dark… more dye, less dark…. more water. This was my first adventure with dyes, and i'm hooked, a lot of control. I think a lot of people on here use it with restoration to blend and match existing finishes etc…

To pop the grain I got up to 150 grit then put my dye mixture on and let it dry. Then i sanded again with 150 and added another round of dye to darken it up. So I sanded most of the dye out of the face grain and left dye in the end grain. I used 150 vs 220 to keep the wood absorbing the dye.

To answer your question.. no i didn't raise the grain with water prior to my first coat of dye.
 

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Perfect…that's exactly the feedback I needed before experimenting, as I love the look of maple, but am leery about screwing it up with poor finishing methods.

Cheers!
 

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Thanks for sharing the info about the dyes. i've never even thought of trying something like that. The maple is beautiful.

This is insteresting too, it was on the website link you provided.

Adding "Kick" To Figured Lumber And Veneer
Figured woods sometimes need a little "kick" to really bring out figure, surface shimmer, and luster. Using extremely dilute solutions of an amber-brown dye will enhance figured areas like curl, bird's-eye and swirl area around knots. Dilute means approximately 8 times the normal solution, although you'll need to experiment.
 

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Wow this is really cool, I'd love to make one of these for my place have way to many coats in the closest this would help a ton
 
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