dye question

Hello mission76;
—-this is where I all-ways say; ’test time’!
Do some test pieces….since if you’ve never done any staining before, you’ll want to have some wood to experiment on and see whats happening.

And just remember that a properly done and finished wood piece//project, may excede the time it took you to originally build the project.

....and I thought wood finishing was easy….LOL, but you can do it!

Also it might help if you could upload some pictures, so we could see more of what you’re asking about.

Thank you.
GODSPEED,
Frank

-- --frank, NH, http://frank.wordpress.com/

I actually did a piece very similar to what you are thinking of. I used both solid and ply red oak and stained with an aniline dye. Came out great; very even. I will try to get pics up soon. Good luck with your project.

mission76,
I have used analine dye on several projects, some with a mix of oak faced plywood and solid oak. Another project was a cherry queen size bed for my daughter. The headboard had a significant mix of heartwood and sapwood and my daughter wanted it to be even. The dye did the trick (although the heartwood will darken over time and the sapwood will not).

In your case, I believe you should be able to achieve a good result where the ply would be indistinguishable from the solid oak. As mentioned above, test it out on sample boards to confirm this.

Enjoy the process. I was amazed at how vibrant the grain patterns appeared using dyes rather than traditional stain. On a few of my projects, I even put dye on first and then put a coat of gel stain over it and the result was very pleasing.

Let us know how it goes!

John

My side board has both solid and veneer white oak. I used ash plywood for the drawer bottoms. I used an aniline dye on the entire piece and the color is very consistent on all parts.
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/10561

-- Tim -- http://tmuli.com

Most solvent based contact cemented veneers will lift or bubble when a heavy coat of any type of lacquer is used in the finishing process. It dissolves the glue.

Cracking or checking of the veneer after gluing is caused by the veneer being to wet when applied. As the moisture leaves over time the veneer shrinks. Or an unbalanced substrate changes dimension causing the veneer to check on top of it to crack.

-- Steve Nearman, FurnitureRepair.net, Fredericksburg, VA