Coloring oil varnish?

[polkat]

Amature builder here. Good with the wood, lousy with the finish. As I understand it there are three primary ways to color varnish; transparent artists oil paints, aniline dye, and tar(?). My questions are: First, in my small town the only art store we have sells Windsor & Newton oil paints only. I cannot tell from the lable on the tubes if the paint is transparent or not. They have a code for something called 'permanence' but nothing else. Anyone know how to tell? Second, where can one find aniline dyes locally? This same art store doesn't know what I'm talking about. Lastly, am I missing some other way to color oil varnish? Thanks!

[Michael Darnton]

W&N Alazarin Crimson is a good transparent red. Their Indian Yellow is the yellow you want to use. If you don't want to use tar, Pthalo Blue is a good third color from the W&N line. With those you should be able to do what you want.

For analine dyes, look at the oil soluble stains on this page: http://www.internationalluthiers.com/varnish.php

[jmasters]

The iron oxides are considered semi-transparent or transparent depending on the company also. They come in brown, red, and yellow. The red is an ochre color, the yellow is a dirty tawny color. There is also a brown alizarin which seems as though it may be Alizarin crimson with one of the iron oxides.

Many people glaze with very thin coats of oil color between oil varnish coats. I have tried it and abandoned it because of a slight haze. This works easily however. I do not know if you would prefer this to direct mixing in the varnish. Of course, if you cook a varnish with linseed oil, you could use the oil paint as part of the varnish.

[nertz]

A couple of other brands of oil tube colour worth checking out are the “Rembrandt” brand, their lightfast ness and transparency details can be found on this site, http://www.talens.com/mainrembrandtoilchart1.html

And “old Holland classic colours” can be bought from this site http://www.lawrence.co.uk/shop/index.html?...atalog72_0.html

[Jeff Haas]

If your using tube oils be sure to use the "artists" colors and not the cheaper "student" which can contain alot of fillers. Many makers also like the Daniel Smith oils.

[Jeff Haas]

The following site might be helpful. Its a "watercolors" site but the pigment part seems to apply. The "Tr" number refers to the transparency: "0"-opaque to "4" Transparent.

http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/sitefsc.html

[polkat]

Thanks guys! Good info (and lots to think about).

[ROYCE]

you might want to check out this...

http://www.oldfiddles.com/commerce/catalog...ex.php?cPath=24

[nicolo]

http://www.oldfiddles.com/commerce/catalog...ex.php?cPath=24

You really might want to take a look here. I have been using this guy's varnish for about a year now (sometimes mixed half and half with another varnish I like - the two together being a great combination). Anyway, I dealt with him on Ebay until recently, when I bought some stuff from the web site. He is great to deal with and his products are easy to use. He probably has everything you need to produce some nice results.

[Michael Darnton]

I just realized no one's posted the mothership of all color sources, Kremer Pigments: http://www.kremer-pigmente.de/englisch/catalog.htm