Wood Dye - Aniline Dye 5 Color Kit - Wood Stain Powder

Great product, although make sure to watch youtube vids to get an idea of how the application differs from stain. I prefer the liquid, it is a bit "cleaner?" looking, its hard to describe, but the price difference means ill stick to powder for everything but blue/red, since i make use of them the most, and tend to just add yellow, brown, or black to adjust the hue. Works good on white pine, aspen, hickory, poplar, cedar, hard maple, and mahogany, although ive mainly used it on pine, poplar, and aspen so far with excellent results. Works the best with aspen and hard maple in my opinion. I will be trying red oak at some point soon. Play around with the mix ratio in small batches, you can create some interesting colors that can vary depending on lighting and/or the woods grain. Keep track of the amounts used so you can duplicate colors. I've made a blood red with orange highlights and an almost indigo blue with teal undertones that i am very happy with. Dont use anything higher than about 60% isopropyl alcohol unless you add water or it may not dissolve properly. The shelf life after mixing has been pretty long if kept in sealed container (approx 3mo so far). I DONT RECCOMEND LACQUER THINNER AS A BASE, it seems to allow the dye to permeate lacquer even after it was allowed 24hrs to dry. Isopropyl does not seem to have the same issue. Water only has not given very good results either, it doesn't seem to get into the wood very well at all. Sanding to 400 grit on soft woods seems to work best for me, but with harder ones approx 180 is probably sufficent. The finer you sand, the longer it takes to get in the wood, but too rough and it will go too far, just like oil or water based stain. Youll probably use more than expected, maybe 4 times what you would expect to use on a project than oil staining the same thing? Thats a only guess though, it could be more, but you will never manage to get the same results using a stain, either water or oil based, although i am going to try using Minwax's new 'True Black' oil stain instead of the black powder using mineral spirits maybe as the base and will update if the results are worth mentioning. i havent looked to see if they mention using MS as a base works or not.

This product is great - I'm a novice woodworker and my current project is an aquarium stand I'm cladding in 1/4" stain grade maple plywood. I want to stain it the same color as the deep wine red cherry cabinets I have in my kitchen (you know, that color you see on Queen Anne furniture). I tried several water based and oil based stains on test pieces, but they all had issues - a pain to apply, long wait times to multiple coats, streaks, covered up the wood grain, etc. The closest I got was with a Rustoleum Black Cherry, but it streaked really badly during application. So, I tried these Keda dyes...they worked beautifully - really brought out the wood grain, SO easy to apply, quick dry time to apply several coats, no streaking, etc. My only wish is that they had some sort of a color chart because I had to try several mixes and carefully note the proportions of dye to water before I got what I was looking for (for the record - on my maple plywood, the perfect mix was 1/8 tsp Red dye, 1/8 tsp Black dye, and 1/16 tsp Brown dye in 6oz of water, three coats of 90 seconds letting the dye sit on the wood, then wipe it off and wait 30 minutes to do the next coat). And the cleanup is so easy too - no mess, and just a few seconds of running water and I was able to reuse my foam brush and even my nitrile gloves (unlike that oil based mess). I can't recommend this product enough, and I'm getting another batch (because quite frankly I used up a lot of it trying different mixes - for the record, they're not kidding about "be sparing with the blue dye, it tends to take over"). Some advice: on the piece you're going to use this stuff, on, sand it with 80 grit (if it's that rough), then 120 grit, and finally 180 grit, make sure you wipe the surface dry of dust, then flood it with water for 90 seconds and wipe the excess water off and let it sit to raise the grain, sand it at 180 again and wipe the dust off, THEN apply the dye - great results. And make sure you use warm water when mixing the dye up. Tempted to try alcohol instead of water (cut your dry times to a third), but I'm just so happy with what I've got with the water now, I think I'll stick with it. I was going to try the General Finishes premixed dye and/or the TransTint's, but I was worried about how much money I'd have to spend to get the ones I was guessing I'd need to mix to get that dark cherry color - this entire package was <$13.

After an exhaustive search to find a stain/dye for my guitar project, I finally settled on this one. Honestly, the best value for the money because you can mix your own colors in many combinations. The instructions were very easy to follow, but you do need to know a little about color combinations to get the one you want if mixing. The powder amount included in small but mighty!! Don't let it fool you. It doesn't take much. I have plenty left over for other projects, and many more colors that I can make now. Mixing was very fast and easy and I got the results I wanted. I mixed 8oz of hot water with 1/4tsp of dye, and could have done 20 or 30 more guitars with the single batch I had left over. Not to mention all the powder left over for other projects. This was a great experience for me, and I'll be using it more in the future!!

Item arrived promptly as expected. Seemed to work ok, but ran into some issues. There's no information, recommendation or guidance on mixing up colors, for amounts of dye to use with what amounts of solvent/liquid to create the most effective and usable stain. I also found that when you do combine different colors to customize, you MUST mix it regularly, as they separate into color layers. I ended up using a mason jar type thing with a tight lid, so it could be shaken, regularly, without making a mess.

I love this stuff!!! Oh my gosh, I want to stain everything different colors now. I got this specifically to stain the wood displays I made for the jewelry I sell -- everything came out a beautiful shade of dark purple, my favorite! I purchased some clear, water-based stain and first tested a small amount to figure out how much of the dye I would need. Hint, you don't need very much. This stuff is very concentrated and saturated. I'll admit that when I first saw how much powder came in the kit, I was a bit dismayed because I didn't think it would go very far. But, I have stained probably seven or eight panels, a dozen small panels, a couple of small wooden crates, and a few more things and I still have probably 60-70% of the red and blue dye left. You only need a tiny bit of this stuff -- it goes a long way. So far, I've only experimented with make purple stain, but with the colors you get, you could make quite a few custom colors. You have to stick to darker colors, but that's fine because most people want to make wood darker. Besides, the darker colors on the wood are much more vibrant. I'm going to experiment with making a few things orange, to match the branding for the jewelry I sell. For now, I just so happy that my displays are vibrant and colorful and all match -- it makes my display look much more professional. And it's been a year since I first dyed them and they have all remained as vibrant as the first day I made them. This dye is really great -- give it a shot, you won't be disappointed. If you have any questions about using this, please feel free to ask. I'm certainly no expert, but I have been playing with it for awhile now.

Okay, so just like many of you reading this, the thought of mixing these dyes was a little intimidating to me. Regardless of my hesitation and uncertainty I went ahead and bought this to try it out. Man oh man am I glad I did!!! We’re currently experiencing a state wide shelter in place order. This leaves my husband and I AMPLE time to do frivolous things like construct a whole playground for absolutely no reason other than to occupy our minds and entertain our children! 😂 I wanted the playground to be fun with vibrant colors that popped. It was important to me that it have some kind of charm other than a minimalist triangle angsty vibe. That’s when I got the idea to use wood dye, instead of buying six different color paints. When I got these I mixed the dyes much like I prepared Easter egg dye, only instead of vinegar I used 91% isopropyl alcohol. I watched a couple YouTube videos and as soon as I got the red mixture down, I was unstoppable. It’s hard to believe that for only $17 we were able to get such a vibrant and remarkable color pay off. SUPER impressed and can’t say enough about how user friendly this wood dye is. I’m a novice pigment user/mixer upper and as long as you take your time, you really can fix the dye to make it exactly what you want. On application the dye is much darker. For example, the purple dye was a deep merlot color when I first applied it. Which honestly scared me and I was convinced I had ruined the whole color palette. I was totally wrong and when it dried it looked fabulous. I know you’ll be just as impressed as we were!! This is just cheap wood from Lowe’s, roughly sanded to knock the splinters off and it took this dye like a dream!!

Okay, so this dye is amazing, I have done a lot of wood stains, this is the easiest to use by far. There are some things beginners should know though. First off, it is more work to mix your own from powder than it is to open a can. Mixing a color takes about 2 minutes, opening a can takes 2 seconds. Don't let 1 minute and 58 seconds deter you from mixing your own. It's easy and it saves you time in the long run. When mixing this dye with water, you get excellent results and overlapping a few strokes isn't even noticeable, even in a light shade. If one piece spears lighter, don't worry. Let it dry for 10 minutes and it will likely completely even out, wetter spots will look darker only until it's dry. If it dries and looks like a lighter shade, that's okay. Your red box didn't magically turn pink because the water evaporated. As soon as you seal/clear coat, it will return to the color that appeared when wet. These colors are extremely bright! I've mixed my own dyes using liquid pigments, and although you can get a thicker darker coat that way, it's easier to screw up and go too dark. This dye makes that hard to do. One coat at a time it's easy to get the wood the exact shade you want. This is the easiest dye I have ever used. No clumping, no dark spots, saturates naturaly even on rough pieces.

Practical instructions are a bit vague with this product, but the product itself is very good. If you want to know how to get certain colors, search for a video on color mixing with watercolors. That should help, then you just have to work out the proportions. Bought this for a custom sofa build using red oak. The fabric is indigo velvet and the legs, arm and back supports are brushed aluminum. I like oak - it's durable and has nice grain, but I didn't want the natural oak color - it just doesn't go with the fabric or the metal well. I had originally designed the sofa to use purpleheart, but it is very hard to work and expensive. Also, purpleheart fades over time to a brown. Too many problems, so I opted to dye the oak. I didn't want the wood to stand out so much as blend in. I mixed up 1/8 tsp black, 1/4 tsp blue, 1/4 tsp red in several tablespoons of alcohol then topped up with warm tap water to make roughly 1 quart of dye in a 5 cup plastic food storage box with tight lid. I put several coats of dye on all pieces and left them overnight to dry. It was too red and not dark enough. I've painted for years, so color mixing is something I'm pretty good at. I added an additional 1/2 tsp of the blue powder after warming in the microwave for 1.5 minutes. Got a lovely black/blue/purple Once lacquered, it will look really nice with the brushed aluminum and dark blue velvet. Very happy with the results. I wanted almost a black purple. Looks great! It highlights the grain very well, too. Use a small scrap piece to test the final finish. Dye it at the same time and then test the finish coat on the scrap BEFORE you put any finish on the real pieces.. This will keep you from making a really big mistake if you don't like the actual finished color. You don't want to have to wait for the finish to dry and then sand it all off again so you can start over - huge time waster and extremely annoying. Colors always change drastically once the final finish coats are applied. They will be darker and richer - usually. The dry wood looks a bit dayglo, but once the lacquer goes on, it becomes rich and deep. The dry wood will not give you a real clue what the finished wood will look like. I used a scrap stick and after the first dye session lacquered it only to find it was far too red. So, back to the dye a second time. I found the dye very forgiving. I had accidentally left some small drips on the wood the first time around, but when I applied the second round of dye, the drips vanished completely. I think this was largely due to it being oak. If it had been a softer wood it would most probably have soaked in enough to be a problem. You have to be really careful of drips and fingerprints with any dye or stain. I applied it with a brand new cellulose sponge cut in half and rinsed out with tap water. It worked very well. I had finish sanded with 150 grit paper as per the instructions. If you sand too smooth, the dye won't penetrate well. I think a brush would be very messy. Cut several pieces and have them on hand. If you drop one, you will not want to reuse it unless your garage is far cleaner than mine. This type of dye is powerful and long lasting. I've been told it will stay on you for weeks if you really let it sink in. In my case, I'd look like a blue cartoon character - not desirable really.... You want to wear gloves and protective clothes. Don't wear anything you don't want stained. Be careful mixing the dye as well. It can and will stain your countertops and possibly your floor really well... If you use rags to work it in, don't wash them with your clothes! (No I didn't do this, but back in my younger painting days, such things happened.) It is very thin when mixed, so it will splash really spectacularly if you get too busy with the mixing spoon or when applying to the wood. I didn't wipe the dye off. I worked it in with the sponge until it was all soaked in, but I wanted really dark wood color. I just made sure it was even and not pooling anywhere. Very nice product. Good bright colors. Easy to use. I'm using Deft gloss lacquer after the dye has fully dried. Going for a Japanese lacquer look... High finish and super smooth. Lacquer is the best for this, though a bit more work. Good product. It works. Staining wood is definitely a process. Give yourself enough time to do it or you will regret it. Otherwise, have fun with it! Some friends shook their heads when I said purple wood, but now they say it looks great. Hey, it's my sofa - it can be purple if I want it to be purple. Your sofa or guitar or whatever can be any color you want... Beware of backseat designers on any project. It is your vision. Stick to your guns on it or you will end up with something you didn't really want. A hard learned lesson I am passing on for free... Hope this helps...