Turquoise Stain

[Gordon Bellerose]

I want to do a blue burst guitar, that starts with a turquoise blue in the center.
I'm not sure I can get the right color by simply diluting the blue stain I have.
Does anyone know of good light blue water-base stain. I do want it to be transparent also.

[Mark Swanson]

Use a lacquer tint or dye, and not a stain. With colors like that it is best to tint the finish.

[Gordon Bellerose]

Mark.
I usually do mix the color into water base lacquer. Do you think I will be able to get a light enough blue to look turquoise?
Of course I will practice on scrap.

[Mark Swanson]

I would think so...I have sprayed blue tinted lacquer and the first thin coats looked like that. You will need to start out with a very light colored wood base for sure, white maple or something.

[Peter Wilcox]

I've used watercolor paints (the kind that comes in tubes.) They are transparent, and I imagine the good quality ones are color fast.

[David King]

Turquoise is going to require some yellow wood or a bit of yellow dye in the center section isn't it? There are several blues and some would get you a lot closer to turquoise than others. Solar-lux sea blue is going to get there, cobalt or royal blue isn't.

[Clay Schaeffer]

Mohawk makes a blue dye stain (ultra penetrating stain) that could be mixed with the green dye stain to pull whichever turquoise you might want.

[Gordon Bellerose]

Yeah, I've been thinking about this for a while now, and that is why I am asking.

Yellow into blue makes green. I've done that in one of my builds prior to this. A single drop of yellow can turn blue into a really green color.

I'm thinking a bit of white may have to go into the blue, but I only have opaque white, and I don't think white is available in a transparent stain/dye.
The wood I am working with is ash, and a fairly white ash at that. It has some beautiful grain in it, thus the wish for transparency.

I may simply go with a different deeper royal blue, if I can't satisfy my craving for turquoise.

[Barry Daniels]

I forget the details, but I seem to remember that transparent dyes combine differently than opaque colors.

Edit: Look up "additive and subtractive color mixing" to see the differences.

Second Edit: I found an online, interactive additive color mixing wheel. When you add green and blue you get turquoise. http://www.physics-chemistry-interactiv ... thesis.htm

[Peter Wilcox]

This shows the result of pthalo blue applied to the central spalted area which had a slightly yellow tint; the result looks pretty close to turquoise to me.

Here's pics of the bare wood, and after application of the watercolor but before lacquer.

http://www.mimf.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php ... 544#p44275

[Bob Francis]

This shows the result of pthalo blue applied to the central spalted area which had a slightly yellow tint; the result looks pretty close to turquoise to me.

ricks-top1.jpg

Here's pics of the bare wood, and after application of the watercolor but before lacquer.

http://www.mimf.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php ... 544#p44275

Wow!

[Clay Schaeffer]

Wow!+

[Beate Ritzert]

Wow++

Edit: Look up "additive and subtractive color mixing" to see the differences.

But we will not have additive mixing unless we use colorful light. When we stain or use tinted laquer, mixing of colors will always be substractive.

[Barry Daniels]

Beate, you may be right about that, but when using tinted lacquers things don't always work out like expected, from my experience.

[Randolph Rhett]

Here is a guy that does some nice stuff with just wipe on leather dyes:

https://youtu.be/N45O5K3ntik
https://youtu.be/MiJoGUQckwk

[Gordon Bellerose]

Thanks for all the replies. A lot of information coming from the members!
I am looking into the leather dyes. I've been watching Big D guitars for a while now. Thanks for the reminder.

I have wiped on color in the past using alcohol, and water both, as a medium. Water spreads nicer, but raises the grain more. Alcohol dries very quickly, so you have to work quickly.

Peter Wilcox. The thalo blue dye. What kind is it, and where did you get it?

[Peter Wilcox]

Gordon, it's from this watercolor set I bought about 15 years ago at Michaels: https://www.amazon.com/Reeves-Assorted- ... d_sbs_hg_2

But as you can see from my pic of the guitar, different parts of the wood took the color quite differently - the turquoise color came up on the spalted wood that initially had a yellow tint to it. I wiped exactly the same mixture (pthalo blue and a little black, diluted with water) on the whole top - the rest of the wood absorbed the black color too, and the blue is also much more "blue." If you try this you will probably have to add some yellow and possibly green also. A nice thing about watercolor sets is that you have many possibilities. If I decide on a mixture of colors I'm careful to mix enough do do the whole job, because I know I'll never be able to duplicate it exactly no matter how carefully I measure.

[Gordon Bellerose]

Peter,

You said that these are transparent, correct?

[Peter Wilcox]

Peter,

You said that these are transparent, correct?

Some are transparent in varying degrees, some are opaque. In general, I think most watercolors can be considered transparent because they are diluted significantly in use (in washes anyway.)

Here is a brief list of some transparent colors:
http://www.artguildstore.com/uploads/2/ ... y_list.pdf

Here's some more extensive info on the subject (page 10 for transparency or opaque):
http://www.winsornewton.com/assets/Leaf ... nglish.pdf

As we always say, test on scrap!