# Help with tiger maple



## therookie (Aug 29, 2010)

Does anyone know what type of finish that charles Neil uses on tiger maple to make the figure pop I know he uses trans tint dyes but where can I get dye for a good price.


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## Dez (Mar 28, 2007)

Drop him an email, I am sure he would be more than happy to help!


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## wapakfred (Jul 29, 2011)

Jeff Jewitt sells the Trans Tint products from his website HomeStead Finishing Products


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## CharlesNeil (Oct 21, 2007)

so lets ask him,,, glad to help., tell me exactly what you you want to know,, and I'll see if i can get him to answer,, I know him well haha,..


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## therookie (Aug 29, 2010)

Hey Mr. Neil,
I was just wondering the dye color that you use to bring out the colors I have just gotton tiger maple from Skip at GHH for my music Stand and want to finish the final stand right and make it look good. After I build a prototype out of poplar of course.


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## CharlesNeil (Oct 21, 2007)

typically I use the General Finishes dyes, the most poplar color is a mix of 1 pt light brown ,1/2 part orange and 1/2 part water. we call this New England maple as it looks like the slight orange tinted maples of the old shakers, and as stated its our most chosen color on Tiger maple, and of course you can adjust to taste, but the other thing we do is what we call trace coating, meaning I will apply the dye when I am ready to sand, this will show me any glue, or other imperfections, once I have sanded to 120 I apply another coat, but remember the curl in the tiger maple is a softer grain so it will absorb the dye more so than the harder grain, so dont expect to remove all the dye from the curl, and we really dont want to'
Once it is redyed at 120 , I sand to 180 , now the curl is really starting to show, then the final dye.
what has happened is the curl now has 3 coats of dye and the harder surface has 1 , thus the curl is very well defined, you can experiment also using a much darker color for the first and second dye , I have even used a diluted ( 50 %) black… experimenting with base color dyes for curl enhancement, you will find some interesting effects can be achieved,,, this only works on woods that have defined figure like tiger maple and quilted maple and so forth, 
Once the dye has dried I use some General Finishes seal a cell to "pop the curl", what this does is soaks into the softer curl and begins to "fill' it with a oil, I usually use 2 coats, this then creates a prism effect to give the curl depth and "pop".. many use BLO, I hate the stuff, while it does well in enhancing the grain, it just nevers dries to a very strong finish, and now days it seems to be worse,, so I prefer the seal a cell, because it dries quickly and is much advanced in durability, once dry I top coat , for a oil finish I use GF arm R seal , but for me , it is usually a sprayed water base finish in a satin sheen…. hope this answers and helps if not ask away


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## therookie (Aug 29, 2010)

This helps a ton where do you get the general finishes and arm-R-seal.
Thanks,
Adam


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## Dusty56 (Apr 20, 2008)

I know WoodCraft sells those items : )


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## therookie (Aug 29, 2010)

Thanks dusty


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## tyskkvinna (Mar 23, 2010)

Hey, thanks for this! I have a lot of heavily figured maple and it would fun to try this out on some of it.


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## Cosmicsniper (Oct 2, 2009)

Here is a great thread a month or two ago that really explores some of the dye dynamics and techniques the Charles described, at least in part.

http://lumberjocks.com/topics/27475

BTW, I think its easy to outthink yourself with tiger maple. You can pop the grain pretty spectacularly by wiping on an oil or some shellac (I like the Zinnser Seal Coat for this). But the sanding step is key.

You might want to checkout Marc's video on this subject here…

http://thewoodwhisperer.com/episode-32-pop-goes-the-maple/


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## CharlesNeil (Oct 21, 2007)

I agree the seal coat pops grain well and I use it often, its as good as an oil, however, if you plan to use an oil finish, it will seal off any absorbtion of the top coat oil,, I use seal coat usually under a film finsh like lacquer, or water base, ...


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