Staining Pipes

Sounds easy, huh. Nope the options run from natural tobacco mixes, to red wines, leather dyes or analine dry powders to mix with denatured alcohol and I am sure there are many more. Then there is the subjective aspect of who likes what, understains and top coats producing high contrast vs. light natural stains that really just highlight the natural wood.

Personally I have used the powders mixed with denatured alcohol and fiebing's leather dyes.

The Fiebing's Leather Dyes are available from Leather Works and come in a wide variety of colors, are very easy to apply making them almost screwup free. Yep, you got to be pretty dumb not to be able to achieve a decent finish with this stuff. The downside to these is they are very full and heavy and while there is a wide variety of colors - the one you are going for is not one of them. I have tried mixing two colors to obtain what I want with some success and to reduce the fullness I have thinned them by adding denatured alcohol. This is not to say it is a bad product, they are great if the look they give is what you are going for.

Powders, I do not have as much experience with. This is basically because the colors I got a long time ago from Pimo are not at all the colors I want. They work well so I guess my big problem is color and fullness. I also realize that what I am looking for now is an "of the moment type thing" and since my preference for a stain will change about as much as my tobacco du juor I do not consider the expenditures I have made unwise, just not providing what I want when I want it.

What should I have done?

Well there was I post I had read from John Rocheleau about his preference and considering his background, knowledge about color and stains I wish I had followed and I do plan on following his advice - but there are so many things on my to-do list that every thing has a pecking order and the order is constantly changing. Unfortunately due to index problems at PMF I can't locate the thread where he explains this, so I have to wing it.

While Mohawk, available locally at these locations, offers many set colors in their powder line of dyes John's recommendation was to invest in the three primary colors.

John claims, again I think he is right on top of the subject, that he can mix any color from the three primarys (everyone remember art class?). The tones and colors on his work is much like what I would like in a stain. The other advantage is the blacks. Blacks can be red based or blue based and when used as an undercoat for a contrast stain produce different results depending what is being used as a top coat. Those that have used a blue based black and a yellow top coat may have noted the green highlights from the blue base reacting with the yellow top coat. Is it bad, no it depends what you are going for. These is also the USMC black based black fiebing leather due that makes an excellant undercoat that does not produce as much of a bleeding effect. So staining is much like tobacco with me - it is what you want for the moment.

For those pipemakers residing in the Buffalo area that would be "Schuele Paints" at 12 Summer Street!, might be having you pick up 3 for me if Venus aligns with Uranus.