colour coats first or second?

[Brian Evans]

I'm going to be doing my first spray WB finish soon. I'm using a spray polyurethane cross-linking gloss clear, and analine dyes. The main colour is going to be a cherry red similar to an ES-335. Should I shoot the colour onto the bare wood as the first coats, or should I do several base coats?

Thanks, Brian

[Barry Daniels]

I like to seal the surface with a couple of thinned coats of my finish (nitro lacquer in my case) before starting color coats.

[Craig Bumgarner]

Same here, seal before color to prevent splotches. Then color, then clear coats to allow for wet sand and polish without getting into the color coat.

[Brian Evans]

Thanks, guys, that is what I thought would be best but the instructions that came with the dye cause me to have a tiny bit of doubt.

Brian

[Craig Bumgarner]

I think there a lots of people who apply the dye straight to the wood, but that never worked for me. Maybe some who does it that way can illuminate.

[Brian Evans]

It was kind of funny. Paraphrasing, it said mix 30:1 in water or alcohol, apply, wipe off excess, try not to get blotches but you will on all these kinds of woods, the blotches sometimes look nice under finish, it's not colour-fast so anything you put on will cause the colour to run, you can stabilize it with boiled linseed oil, if you add it to a little shellac or WB finish you don't get these problems. And that you can mix it directly in WB finish or shellac, but not in oil based finishes. Nada about base coats. I'm basically going to follow the Stew-mac schedule, I think, which is base coats, colour coats, finish coats. And hope...

[Barry Daniels]

It is good advice to practice the entire finish schedule on a scrap of wood.

[Rodger Knox]

I typically apply stain directly to the bare wood, but I don't spray finish, and I don't use WB finish.
If you're applying stain to bare wood, the stain solvent needs to be different than your finish solvent, or the colors may be affected.
I use the water soluble metal acid dyes from LMII under TruOil, and that usually works nicely.
The type of wood also can affect the outcome, so this is a typical TEST ON SCRAP procedure, using offcuts of the wood you will be staining.

[Peter Wilcox]

I'm a neophyte, but these are a few things that have helped me:

1) To reiterate, ALWAYS test on scrap
2) Sanding to finer grits (800-1000) reduces splotchiness for dyes and stains
3) Raise the grain and sand back
4) Dilute stain/dye and apply several coats rather than one dense application
5) Wipe on with a cloth, relatively dry, rather than brush on wet
6) For opaque color coats (especially bursts), apply over several clear coats - if you screw up you can easily sand back
7) Applying the dye and lightly sanding back increases figure contrast

[Gordon Bellerose]

Brian, soft woods will react differently than hard woods.
As a for instance, I always seal soft woods with a couple coats of shellac, or thinned coats of lacquer.
Once the seal coats are dry and sanded with 360 - 400 grit, I would then spray a coat or two of color, depending on how strong your mix is and how deep a tint you want.
I always mix my color with lacquer for that stage.
Once the color is right, then start shooting coats of clear.
I try to put 2 or 3 coats of clear on top of the color before sanding, to prevent sanding through into the color coat.

But as stated a couple times already, please practice on scrap.

[Brian Evans]

Well, I am going out to practice this morning. Shop will be at 70 degrees F and around 45% humidity. My test piece already has three to four coats of clear as a base coat. I am hoping that adding colour to the clear will let me see the spray pattern and I will be able to dial in my gun, and I'll be adding side lights so I can see the work piece better. I will mix up my colour in a very small batch so that I can experiment with mix ratios and number of coats to get the colours I want. Gordon, when you thin your Brite-Tone WB finish, what ratio do you use and do you just add water? Do you spray finish coats full strength?

Brian

[Brian Evans]

Well, that was a dismal failure. I didn't seem to have clogging issues when I was shooting untinted clear finish, but as soon as I added the tint the gun would clog up and stop spraying. If it would spray, it would kind of spit intermittantly. I tried two guns, one big gun with a 1.4mm tip was better but it would clog and stop spraying as well. It's like the finish is forming little snot balls. I think I will experiment with foam brushes this afternoon.

[Barry Daniels]

What kind of dye are you using? Liquid or powdered? If powdered, did you have lumps that weren't filtered out?

Normally, dyed finish should spray just like clear finish.

[Brian Evans]

I am using these dyes: http://www.woodessence.com/ColorFX-Dye- ... s-C12.aspx

I went out after lunch and tried again. This time I used a new mixing bottle (the other one had some old finish adhered to the sides that being clear, and me having 60 year old eyes, I could not see until I took it inside to wash with hot water and soap. Then it kind of slimed off. But I don't think that was the problem. I added the dye in drops, and stirred with a stir stick. I could clearly see lumps of undissolved dye that were kind of snotty in texture. I let the mix sit for a while while I inspected my spray gun and stripped it completely apart for a really good clean, and put it together again and set it up spraying water (kind of not very close to a correct setup, but you can tell if it's working or not). Then I looked at the mix and the lumps appeared to be gone, at least I couldn't see them. I got some coffee filter paper and filtered the mix into the gun cup, couldn't see any trapped lumps, and the mix sprayed really well. After I tuned up the gun and pattern I was getting a great pattern and very fine atomization. So I am hopeful again that mixing really well, letting it sit for a while and filtering it will be the answer.

[Gordon Bellerose]

I have not used that particular dye, or tint.
If I thin the water base lacquer, I use distilled water.
I do not use very much. Probably 4 parts lacquer, 1 part water.

[David King]

The Wood Essence dyes look a lot like the TransTint dyes.

[Brian Evans]

I pretty much suspect they are identical to Transtint, who also make the Stewmac dyes. I found something online that said they are all made by the same company. If it's on the interweb, it must be true, right?

Anyway four coats of clear sprayed today. Next big decision is whether to sand flat tomorrow, or spray colour coats directly on the clear. So far I have no runs that I can find.

[Barry Daniels]

It is useful to sand at various points during the finishing process rather than waiting until the end. This also helps adhesion of the coats even though many of the finishes have burn-in properties. Some amount of leveling before the color coats will also help to give a more even color. For example, a bump under the color coat may eventually get sanded down which would leave a bright spot.