Ground application— wet with solvent, then rub in pigment

[violins88]

Hope this is not too ridiculous.  I recall that, when I was fooling with oil/water casein emulsions, John Masters suggested applying mineral spirits to the bare wood before applying the oil/water casein emulsion. When I applied the emulsion to the bare wood, the wood soaked up the water out of the emulsion, and the emulsion became too thick to spread smoothly. Also, one does not want water near the bare wood for obvious reasons. 
 

So I’m thinking about Michael Molnar and his papers about dichromatism. I have some Orasol yellow R2LN dye. It is soluble in alcohol. I have a jar of this dye in alcohol. One can easily see that, in thin layers, it appears yellow. But in thick layers, reddish.  So I imagine the maple cellulose tubes, filled with this dye. I wonder if color can be force into the wood by rubbing. Perhaps use turpentine on the bare wood, then rub in glue that is colored with dye. Perhaps casein emulsion colored with dye. 
 

Comments?

[Don Noon]

3 hours ago, violins88 said:

So I imagine the maple cellulose tubes, filled with this dye.

Dyes are very strong so if anything is "filled with this dye", it's going to be burned.  A dye in solvent may look right, but when the solvent evaporates, you are left with just the strong dye, and it will collect in corners of the cells or elsewhere and look blotchy.

IMO you need to have a resin dissolved along with the dye to reduce the final concentration to what you want.  There is also the issue of wetting; I find that water or alcohol solvents don't wet all that well to the wood, and give a slightly dull result.  Mineral spirits and volatile oils seem to work better for me.

[ctanzio]

I second Don's observation that dye simply dissolved in alcohol runs a risk of giving a non-uniform color intensity across the wood to nasty blotchy results.

I have had success countering this by using diluted shellac as the "resin". Mix the dye with alcohol in some proportion. Then add it to the diluted shellac and try it on scrap wood. It will take some experimentation, but you should be able to come up with proportions that give consistent color on maple and other proportions for spruce to match the maple shading.

This is a ground/sealant mixture and you will not be putting it on so thick as to get any buildup. 

[violins88]

Don and Tanzio,

 

Thanks. That’s very helpful.

[JacksonMaberry]

10 hours ago, violins88 said:

Hope this is not too ridiculous.  I recall that, when I was fooling with oil/water casein emulsions, John Masters suggested applying mineral spirits to the bare wood before applying the oil/water casein emulsion. When I applied the emulsion to the bare wood, the wood soaked up the water out of the emulsion, and the emulsion became too thick to spread smoothly. Also, one does not want water near the bare wood for obvious reasons. 
 

So I’m thinking about Michael Molnar and his papers about dichromatism. I have some Orasol yellow R2LN dye. It is soluble in alcohol. I have a jar of this dye in alcohol. One can easily see that, in thin layers, it appears yellow. But in thick layers, reddish.  So I imagine the maple cellulose tubes, filled with this dye. I wonder if color can be force into the wood by rubbing. Perhaps use turpentine on the bare wood, then rub in glue that is colored with dye. Perhaps casein emulsion colored with dye. 
 

Comments?

What about Mike's annato caseinate approach? 

[violins88]

Where can I find that paper?

[Andreas Preuss]

On 8/8/2023 at 10:49 AM, violins88 said:

I wonder if color can be force into the wood by rubbing. Perhaps use turpentine on the bare wood, then rub in glue that is colored with dye. Perhaps casein emulsion colored with dye. 

I would stay away from emulsions because they stay on top of the wood surface. 
 

The problem with rubbing in stuff into the wood is that it is hard to control. 
 

Very thin liquids can carry pigments into the ground, stains on the other hand have the risk of uneven Color distribution. 
 

MarkNeukirchen makers used traditionally simple water stains and fixed them with glue or gelatine and with good results. No rubbing because this would take too much time.

[violins88]

Andreas wrote “MarkNeukirchen makers used traditionally simple water stains and fixed them with glue or gelatine and with good results. No rubbing because this would take too much time.”

That’s what I want to hear. Now please don’t tell anyone, but it seems to me that glue and sugar, in water and dye, might work on maple. Of course I still have loads of work to do in order to find the best proportions of each.

BTW, Jello is hide glue and sugar + dye, isn’t it?

 

[JacksonMaberry]

27 minutes ago, violins88 said:

, Jello is hide glue and sugar + dye, isn’t it?

 

Jello ground!! I like the idea. 

Out of curiosity, have you played with just tanning the bejeezus out of wood? Looks pretty nice. Oxidizers can look great too if you're in a rush. 

Old Italian fiddles I've seen, the ground hasn't been as dark as it often looks in photos, and people seem to overstate the depth of color. The chatoyance and contrast seems more important to me, regarding an "old" look. 

[violins88]

Jackson,

 I am usually in too much of a hurry to wait for natural uv only. And here in NZ there is the added problem that UV can be so intense that it actually bleaches instead of tanning. John Harte informed me of this.

My next violin is 2 years away from the finishing stage. I plan to use potassium nitrite.

[JacksonMaberry]

2 minutes ago, violins88 said:

Jackson,

 I am usually in too much of a hurry to wait for natural uv only. And here in NZ there is the added problem that UV can be so intense that it actually bleaches instead of tanning. John Harte informed me of this.

My next violin is 2 years away from the finishing stage. I plan to use potassium nitrite.

Damn that's wild! I guess I shouldn't be too keen to hot rod my lightbox any further then. I trust John on these matters. Nitrite will do the trick.

[David Burgess]

I agree with Jackson that the wood underneath original varnish, where it is somewhat protected from light and oxidation and dirt, can be surprisingly light in color.