Color Dye and Tung oil finish

[Jack01]

I am making a Walnut Coffee table. Tonight I sanded the top to 220 grit. 
I applied mineral spirit to check the variation of wood and noticed that it has distinct different color variation.
I was planning to finish the table with Tung oil finish , but now looking at the variation, I am thinking about applying a wood dye
such as General Finish or Homestead , once completely dried finish with Tung Oil.

Will this work?
Any advise?

[fredhargis]

The only advice I'd offer is to try what you want to do on a some scrap that came from the same wood as your table. What you're asking is for our opinion of what you think will look good, and that seldom works as you'd want. A dye can do what you want, but depending on what you mean by "tung oil" it cold change some after being top coated. Also consider a coat of garnet shellac, it does nice things to walnut (my opinion).

[Steve Friedman]

If it's about blending the sapwood to match the heartwood, I asked a similar question here a few months ago.  The answer was shellac, followed by a glaze.  It works.  Mine isn't fabulous, but that's probably a function of my lack of patience.  Here's the thread.

Thread

Steve

[Kansas City Fireslayer]

Jack,

I have used Transtint dye on two large walnut pieces to even out the brown walnut, red walnut and light walnut plywood. I like the TT color dark walnut but they have a medium brown as well. For me, I got the more uniform color appearance I was after. I did loose some of my creamy tones but the red/brown walnut factor disappeared. My top coats were sprayed as was the dye. Dye is so easy to spray it's not funny.

My biggest concern with applying TO by hand over the dye would be lifting and smudging it. I've always sprayed after using a dye so others would know better but I would expect it to lift.

You may be better off toning a shellac coat with TT dye. Spraying would most likely give you more uniform results but you may be able to apply it by hand with decent results. It may take some practice.

Walnut also takes oil based penetrating stains like Minwax very well. This would lock in the wood being it has a binder and a hand applied top coat should be fine with adequate drying time in between.

[Roly]

If you are finishing with a oil base product I would suggest using a powdered water base dye.   The oil will not pick up the water based dye the same as a universal dye that will dissolve in  many types of finishes.    Another option is  to spray a light coat of shellac over the dye to seal it, but if it is a true tung oil instead of a tung oil finish (oil varnish blend) it may not penetrate the same which may look different.
  Always try on scrap to see if the results are what you want.  Don't test on project.   Roly

[jteneyck]

If your question is whether you can apply an oil based finish over a water based dye w/o problems the answer is yes.  In fact, this is the best approach.  An OB finish will not pull up a water based dye. 

TransFast is a water based dye, as is the GF product you mentioned.  Transtint dye is soluble in several solvents, including water, alcohol, lacquer thinner and a few others.  It too is fine under an OB topcoat.  However, you can't apply shellac directly over Transtint dye unless you spray the first coat, otherwise it will pull up the dye because it is soluble in alcohol. 

As mentioned, Transtint makes beautiful shellac based toners and I often use them to adjust the color of a piece.  They are very difficult to apply uniformly by hand and, for that reason, I almost always spray it.  The only time I use them with a brush is for fixing little defects or chips where I apply it with a small artist's brush. 

If you have color variations in your wood, dye will help unify it, as others mentioned.  If you have sapwood, dye is the best first step to blend it in with the heart wood.  This is one of the cases where the dye is best applied by hand using a rag, paper towel, or artist's brush to just apply dye to the sapwood.  There definitely is a skill requirement to do this well but it just takes some practice.  You are just trying to get it close, not perfect.  Once that's done, you could spray another layer of dye on the whole piece to unify any general color variations, or you could seal in the first layer of dye with a coat of shellac and then apply a glaze, or both depending upon how uniform you want the final color to be.  You also could spray a shellac/Transtint toner layer at any point along the way, after the first dye layer to color the sapwood.    

As was said, always, always, always try it on scrap first. 

I know people roll their eyes with how hard this all sounds but it really isn't and getting a uniform color is worth the effort unless you like "rustic". A uniform color while letting the grain come through is what makes a piece look professional. If you would like to hear people ask "You made that?" it's worth the effort to learn how.

John

[Jack01]

I was able to match the color using water based dye.

Picture 1    I dyed the the inner slab first before gluing the frame.

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Picture 2   I dyed the entire piece

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Picture 3    I sanded with fine steel wool , clean then applied 1st coat of Tung Oil  finish

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Picture 4   Applied 2 more coat of Tung oil finish- Final top

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