Not a speaker

dynamo

I’m calling this related because I’m sharing it for the purpose of the finish that could be applied to speakers. Admin can feel free to delete it if you disagree.

Im building my wife a jewelry chest and am pleased with the finish and how it shows grain.

The maple is solid Birdseye, solid figured on the drawer fronts, and curly veneer on the sides. The veneer is stable and consistent in pattern, but did not pop nearly as much as the solid. Color is Transtint coffee brown liquid dye dilluted with denatured alcohol. Finish is General Finishes Arm R Seal oil.

dynamo

ani_101

Looks good. Question - I have used transtint dyes on solid wood, usually diluted with water. Solid wood it works great, raises the grain and after a few coats, and sanding in between the grains are gone and leaves behind a smooth surface and deep coloration for the top coat which is usually water based varnish or dewaxed bin shellac.

I don't work much with veneer, but i did once try to dye veneer and i used transtint in water, but it make the veneer curl up and crack due to the water drying. Does transtint with alcohol have the same issue? 

dynamo

No doesn’t seem to. The alcohol dries really quick. The only veneer species I’ve used it on was curly maple and ribbon stripe mohagony. But no issues. I only use 3m peel and stick adhesive, so I can’t speak to how it would react to other adhesion methods. 

I’ve never tried using it with water, I’ve had good results with alcohol so I just stuck with it.

dynamo

Something else I noted doing this was this was I used some Japan Drier in the oil. Pretty impressive dry times.

ani_101

does alcohol raise the grain?

dynamo

On solid wood maybe a little bit not as bad as what I’ve read water does. I believe if you wet it first, let it dry, sand it, then dye it, that it takes care of the raised grain. When I went for a smooth finish on my RSX speakers (dyed figured maple veneer) I just dyed them, let it dry, sanded, and redyed, which made the grain pop more and was smooth. On this project I didn’t shoot for a smooth finish. You can see the grain is raised dome in some of the pics. 

R-Carpenter

This type of maple Loves to be sanded very smoothly.

The trick to avoid tear outs while paining is to moisten the surface before each pass.

PWRRYD

Roman,
Does that help with any other species?  My planer made tiny tear outs on the face of a hickory board.

dynamo

R-Carpenter said:

This type of maple Loves to be sanded very smoothly.

The trick to avoid tear outs while paining is to moisten the surface before each pass.

Interesting info, never would have thought that, thanks. Just a spray bottle of water? And does this work for routing or only if you make several passes increasing in cut like a planer?

R-Carpenter

PWRRYD said:

Roman,
Does that help with any other species?  My planer made tiny tear outs on the face of a hickory board.

It does. Figured maple with alternating grain direction is probably the most difficult.

R-Carpenter

dynamo said:

Interesting info, never would have thought that, thanks. Just a spray bottle of water? And does this work for routing or only if you make several passes increasing in cut like a planer?

Spray bottle of water will work. I would use a rag to wipe the excess off tho.

For the router, I found climb cutting works the best but you got to be careful with kickbacks.

I never tried water for the routing. Could work.

dynamo

Awesome I appreciate you sharing with your experience!

dynamo

The evening sun was hitting my RSXs nice so I grabbed a pic. This is curly maple veneer, the same dye (w/ alcohol) - evening sun makes it look reddish, several coats of seal coat and several coats of lacquer. Wet sanded, buffed, etc.  I can see some small vertical cracks in the veneer. It’s worth noting that where the cracks are I screwed something up and had to sand the veneer pretty thin and re dye them (a lot). Basically a bead of sweat rolled off my head and caused a blotch. They aren’t cracked elsewhere (or at least not as much) on the baffle. Any cracking is my fault, not the fault of the products. Sanding veneer too thin, getting it too wet dying too much at once rather than letting it dry between dye applications, and probably too many coats of clear (think 10+). I have no cracking on any of my other dyed veneered projects, just these baffles with my errors. Nevermind the dust and hand prints all over them.

ani_101

The veneer is awesome though!

dynamo

Thanks. I get all my veneer from https://www.veneersupplies.com/. Good customer service and anything I’ve gotten from them has been good quality and consistency.