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

Vibrant colors & a deep contrast you can't attain with traditional wood stains. Almost idiot-proof application. Worth every penny.

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...

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.

I had never used a dye on wood before and liked the selection of colors in this pack, the ease of mixing, the ability to mix colors and mixing with water. I’m only offering this review as a caution to those who may be putting their project outside. As stated, I used water to mix the dyes and I used the colors on wood planters and covered all with a UV protective spray sealer. That was about 3 months ago. We have had over 100 temps for many days since and these are sitting in direct sun. The yellow and green colors have faded away, almost 100% fade. I do not attribute this to a product fail, I simply used the product as I did in the past with oil based stain and it did not last in direct sun. I will try again on smaller projects that are in more shaded areas with alcohol base and marine/UV coating. Indoors I have no doubt the colors would stay vibrant. Live and learn, overall I’m happy with the product :-)

Not too bad. I got this for a flooring project that we were doing. The floors had shrunk with the new whole house dehumidifier, and we needed to patch the gaps as it were. I was able to add it too some wood flour and carpenter's glue and make a paste and fill some of the larger gaps. It has dried pretty well and is hardly noticeable. The floors are 250 years old, so they've seen a lot of life, and this is just a little help along the way. The stain really stains if you are not careful and have some of it land on something you were not planning on staining, so keep that in mind. Quality stuff, you don't need a lot to make the color you need.