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I'm having trouble figuring out the difference between wood dyes, and wood stains. Is there one? The local paint and hardware stores have all kinds of wood stains available, but nobody seems to have dye. And when I ask about wood dye, most people look at me sideways. I see Lee Valley sells Aniline dyes, but on their website it says they are for making your own stains. So is this a case of people using different terms for the same thing? Is dye simply the coloring agent in a stain? I feel like I've heard people say to use dye if you want to make grain really pop, but then PRS (who do a good job of popping grain) use the term stain in their finishing process.

My understanding of it is that the colorant in a dye penetrates into the wood, while with a stain it sits on the surface of the wood. Dye pigment molecules tend to be very small which allows penetration into the wood. Stain pigment molecules are too large to do that and require a binder to adhere to the wood surface. I've read that the binder in stains can raise issues of compatibility with finish over the stain. Since dyes don't have binder, that's not an issue for them. Unfortunately, the word stain is used as a verb to describe the use of either one.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

You really don't want to use a stain if you want the clarity in finish. As Jay says, stains contain pigments, and if you let the can of stain sit around, the pigment will settle to the bottom and you will have to remix. What PRS says and what they do is undoubtedly NOT the same. Many times, staining really means dying.
Aniline dyes are to be avoided. I have seen many older mandolins where they used aniline dyes and they fade in sunlight and over time.
I always used Trans-Tint (Stew-Mac rebrands it and calls it ColorTone) and had no problems with fading.

That makes a lot of sense. So with a more porous wood like ash or black limba (I have two bodies one in each wood on the go) would you recommend "dying" then pore filling? I feel like if I fill the pores first that will inhibit the dye really soaking in, but if I pore fill after will that obscure the grain? I realize with both of these woods the grain isn't going to be 3-D like it would with flamed or curly maple so maybe I'm worrying over nothing and the streaks in these bodies will still be evident regardless...

The way I use the terms is that "dye" is the concentrated chemical that you can mix with either something that will be absorbed by the wood (which is "staining" the wood) or with a finish like clear lacquer to tint or shade it. Dyes are transparent, pigments are not. Many pore fillers have pigments which color the wood being filled.

I use the same aniline dye (Colortone) mixed with alcohol to stain wood and pop grain and I mix it with lacquer to add color to finish, but still maintain the ability to see the grain. I sometimes use colored paste pore fillers , but generally don't try other colorants like stains. I might add a little dye to the lacquer to do a sunburst or edge burst.

Read Erlewine and MacRostie's book on guitar finishing - Chapter three covers everything you'll want to know about colorants.

And as alway, whatever is recommended on an internet forum or book or anywhere else should be tested on scrap.

Sorry, ColorTone (Trans-Tint) is a metal acid dye (whatever that is), not aniline. Again, aniline dyes fade.
here is the procedure for doing a white oak back which would be similar to ash. First the wood is filled with oil or water based filler...



After the filler is dry, it is sanded with 220-320 grit.



Then the dye is applied and you are done and ready to spray your build coats.



I know of no way to use something like epoxy for fill. You will end up sanding through the epoxy or have a clear filler. Tinting the lacquer may result in a blotchy finish if sanded too much. That is not staining or dying. You always want your filler to be darker than the dye.

Stains can have interesting effects on open grain woods. You may, or may not like the result but do try it as an experiment. Say on mahogany or oak, black stain will get into the open pores of the early wood, to much greater extent than the closed grain of the late wood. This can be used for special effects. Then sanding between applications of stain will increase the effect.

Commercial stains will often have both a pigment stain and a dye colorant. So to optimize the effect I use black pigment and mix my own stain. I have used this on oak Windsor chairs with black pigment and red dye. I got interested when I saw a series of different dyes used with black pigment; then with white pigment. You can imagine the combinations.

Terminology can confuse the issue but this is what I got years ago from article in FWW. I have found it helpful.

There are dye stains and pigment stains and commercial stains that have both components , as Bob mentioned. Dye stains have the colorant fully dissolved in the carrier liquid and tend to be transparent. Pigment stains have very fine particles of colorant - suspended - in the carrier fluid and tend to be more opaque.
Some stains have both a dye and pigment component and must be thoroughly mixed each time they are used or they will give inconsistent results.

IME the biggest differences are vehicles and Size of pigment particles. Used to be much more differences among "stains" themselves than there was between the two. That has changed in 30 years due to removal of HAPs and VOCs from the stain vehicles.

First is the way the pigments are milled. Both stains and dyes will often use the same pigments these days but lower priced over the counter stains have very coarsely ground pigments compared to a good quality dye which will have them ground to microns in size. The finer the pigment the more penetration into the wood you get (seen as depth of color) and the more transparent the color is.

The vehicles that carry these pigments differ as well. Dyes are usually based on a single solvent but some pro formulas do have a more complex carrier. Stains on the other hand are carried in a more traditional oil paint type vehicles. The object of the dye is to penetrate deep and quick and dry almost instantly, possible by the very small particles. Stain on the other hand wets out the wood and stays mainly on the surface with the finer bits penetrating a bit deeper. There is typically some type of drier added to a stain to promote adhesion and cross linking of the pigment particles in a stain just like a paint. That is why stains will stop darkening after the second coat or so.....the wood is now sealed in a primitive way yet a dye will continue to darken with each successive coat until a saturation point is reached for the particular type of pigment and the size of the particles.

Both have virtues and drawbacks and can achieve beautiful results. I mainly use dyes these days but that is only because they are very universal and I can add them to clear to make shaders and toners as well as coloring bare wood. They are also the current norm for guitar finishes...... But for furniture or cabinets nothing looks better than a good quality oil stain.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

In simple for me, dyes are sprayable and and can cover the entire colour spectrum. They are very intense and you need very little.

My Canadian source for the good stuff. http://www.woodessence.com/ColorFX-Dye- ... s-C12.aspx

Haans, that is stunning and I stand corrected.

I was sloppy in my terminology but here is my reasoning. First, I think of coloring the wood itself as "staining", coloring the finish as "tinting". A solid opaque finish is "painting". Beet juice stains my fingers, my wife colors her fingernails with finish, I paint my car. StewMac says "ColorTone liquid stains are lightfast metal-complex dyes" - they use both terms interchangeably. But I certainly would not smear red ColorTone stain/dye right out of the bottle on a piece of wood - I would dilute it many percent with water or alcohol. By the same token, I might add a couple of drops to some lacquer if I wanted a nice red color on the guitar, but still wanted to see the grain of the wood thru the finish,

So I guess my definition of "dye" is some chemical or pigment that is used to give color to either a stain or a finish, that was the context for my use above

For me, pore filling is a procedure that needs to be done to certain woods, not a finish. It can add color either because it fills the pours with some sort of colored something (paste) or it might have coloring in it that is absorbed by the wood (stain). It might be completely or mostly transparent - CA or epoxy (I realize that some epoxies are slightly amber). I have used epoxy on woods like koa and cocobolo that I wanted to highlight the color and grain but not change the color - I think the effect is like wiping alcohol or naphta on a piece of bare wood to evaluate the final appearance.

Most of my guitars have mahogany necks, which is a porous wood and needs filling. Most of the time I want to change the color of the mahogany to match the body. I have had good luck pore filling with a paste which does darken the wood, sand it back, then applying a red/brown stain to try to match. This is coco, pore filled with zpoxy, a mahogany neck pore filled with paste and stained with red and brown Colortone stain/dye dissolved in alcohol. It is slightly too red, oh well



On non porous wood like spruce and maple I have had (marginal) success staining the wood to try to get some color effect and I have applied tinted finishes for some other effects. I have lots of scrap pieces with various colors of stuff on them

Last comment, I have no experience with varnish, oils, shellacs or other finishes as the final finish (I did a couple of guitars in gun stock oil with mixed results and use shellac as an intermediate coating). I know some people get wonderful finishes with them and on certain guitar they are definitely the correct finish. but I really can't comment. I also know that there are many places to buy finishing products besides SM, but they are just so darn convenient...

I'm still learning and hold the work of you and Brian and several others here as the high standard I'm trying to achieve.

Not a problem, Freeman...
I even catch myself saying stain once in a while, meaning dye. You and Brian are correct too that stains contain a dyed liquid along with the mud in the bottom of the can. They can make a beautiful stain for furniture, maybe instruments too, but they do tend to muddy the look of the finished instrument. How important that is would be an individual kind of thing, needless to say, sunburst mandolins and guitars usually are wanting that clarity right down to the wood.
Yes, some (especially Gibsons) used tinted lacquers. Not sure if it was carelessness or what, but many looked muddy out around the edges (too black).
I cannot remember the mandolin builder in the '70's that used aniline dye on his sunbursts, but they all ended up being washed out and faded looking after several years. He was a well known builder, but it was not known at the time that aniline dyes were not color-fast. Maybe things have changed, but I never would risk it. Trans-Tint is a good product...

I have been looking at Haans use of stains for a while wondering if I could be neat enough to use either dye or stains on guitars. I have sawed up several sets of figured maple that I have dyed in the past with a series of black red and yellow, sanding between. That seems unmanageable with all the bindings etc. on a guitar. I'm still thinking. I don't know that black stain would be any easier.

It would be beautiful; but tricky!!

A friend asked me to put a finish on a mandolin he's making. He hand-rubbed the entire piece with a dark brown stain and then covered everything with shellac. I used Transtint dyes to smooth out the color on the maple back and sides and they look pretty good. Sadly, the spruce top is a blotchy mess. I've sanded back and now have a semi-clear top. Any tips on how to get a relatively even color on the spruce? I'm not setup for spraying so this is a hand rubbed approach. He started out pretty dark, so I can go with a dark sunburst, which might help. Thoughts on conditioning spruce?

Thanks,

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George :-)

That's a tough one George. Sometimes I have had some luck evening things out with trying to pull some of the leftover stain out with alcohol and a rag, hard to say. Is the end result supposed to be a sunburst of some sort?

Minwax has a pre-stain conditioner that you apply before stain to smooth out the blotches.

https://www.amazon.com/Minwax-41500000-Pre-Stain-Wood-Conditioner/dp/B000C02AHY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1523372474&sr=8-2&keywords=minwax+pre-stain+wood+conditioner&dpID=51kCL-nbv3L&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Something that might work for you - Minwax Wood Conditioner. You use it before staining to even out blotchiness.

I haven't used the Minwax product on a guitar, but it works fantastic on pine. I've used it many times on stain pine trim in houses and it is exceptional. I have found that I can cut the product 50/50 with paint thinner with no loss of performance (save a few $$).

Thanks all. I'll give the wood conditioner a try. There is a hand-rubbed sunburst element to the aesthetic already, so that gives me a bit of leeway. I'm just hoping to make it look a bit smoother than what had been achieved previously.

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George :-)

The ad for the Miniwax product says its for oil based stains. Is that going to be a problem with guitar finish? I have only used alcohol and water based stains because I knew they were compatible with lacquer.

George, Roger Siminoff has a description of how Gibson used to hand apply the stains on the Loar ear mandolins in his books on mando construction - I've tried it with marginal luck. My experience with stain directly onto the wood is that it is very hard to control - different grain absorbs differently, it gets blotchy, its hard to fix mistakes.

Freeman, yeah, I've had that issue applying stain as well--especially on spruce. In this instance, I'm using Transtint dyes, so maybe it will work better. I hope so. Will be doing some tests on scrap today or tomorrow. Will the Minwax conditioner help? Time will tell. :-)

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George :-)

Yes, the pre-conditioner is listed for oil stains, but it may work on dyes. I have not used it that way so I cannot tell you it will work.

Since there are several "may works" here, obviously a little practice on scrap is advised.

I was digging around in some old issues of American Lutherie last night and found the article by James Condino on Hand Rubbed Sunburst from his 2011 GAL convention workshop. He does both traditional Gibson style bursts and some very cool modern colors and effects.

He uses the same terminology as I did, the concentrated chemicals are "dyes", diluted in water they make "stains". In the demo he was using LMII aniline dye but in a post script says he has switched to ColorTone because it doesn't fade or change color. He dilutes the concentrates with water since he uses French Polish and doesn't want the alcohol in the FP to pull the color out. As he works he has a piece of the same wood handy to test his stains before applying to the instrument. He seals wood binding with a couple of layers of shellac, however if it gets any color from the stain he can bleach that out with household bleach.

Both Conor and George might want to get a copy of AL No 125

The wood conditioner basically fills the pores of the wood partially. The pores that would take more stain will take in more of the conditioner, and the pores that would take less stain will take less conditioner. The net effect is to even out how much stain will be taken by any of the pores. The conditioned wood won't accept as much stain as the unconditioned wood but will take it more uniformly. A wash coat of blonde shellac will do much the same thing.
I was taught to think of "dye stains" and "pigment stains" and commercial stains which can (but don't always) have components of both.
Bob Flexner's book- "Understanding Wood Finishing" has a section on various types of stains and techniques for staining.