Dying timber with food colouring to imitate Dymondwood

[Fumbler]

Has anyone out there had success with dye dipping or staining wood with Food colouring? I am looking at colour dying turned laminated plywood to add a different level of effect. I am turning some test pieces to see the result, pics to follow.

[Arron]

I've never tried it but some food colourings are not very lightfast. Result may be short lived.

[Ubernoob]

Probably better off using a proper pigment, which one you choose will depend on what you bond the sheets with and possibly the type of finishing coat used.

Createx Pure Pigment Colors™ (http://www.createxcolors.com/purepigment.html)

[Xanthorrhoeas]

Not all pigments last. Many are what are called "fugitive". It is very likely that food colourings are amongst those. In addition to those Ubernoob shows above (good post BTW) check out those from UBeaut and also "rare earth" coloured granular pigments from eBay and elsewhere.

[Mobyturns]

Dyeing veneers is a hit and miss affair for the DIYer, even more so with ply (or larger sections of wood), been there done that. I guess if you have access to pressure pots, or vacuum stabilisation gear it will be a different story. The other things to consider is that the extractives in the timber do funny things to the dye and final colour produced, and then there is the lightfastness of the dye. I have used various commercially dyed veneers and reconstituted veneers which hold their colour well. Finding thicker veneers is now like finding hens teeth. The available thin veneers won't produce the effect of Dymondwood unless you stack multiple layers, of thin veneer for each colour band, and that quickly becomes a very expensive exercise for anything other than very small projects.

I have used UBeaut's dyes with mixed success, yellows are difficult, greens & black offer best results, red was good. Mostly they have held their colour well other than the yellow, but be mindful that PVA glues will blend colours on the joint line. I have achieved best results with polyurethane glues.

ps - repeated from your other post