Please help! Jewellery box colour crisis!

[andrewsd]

Hi all. I have spent weeks making a walnut jewellery box. The thing is beautiful but the walnut has lots of swirling grain of different colour and it looks pretty ordinary against the regular colour lid and drawer fronts. I think the only fix is to stain it a dark walnut or ebonise it. My problem is how to do that. In particular, I need answers to the following questions:

1 Use analine/water based dye or a non grain raising dye? I have read that the raised grain from water dyes can be a real problem when finishing, even after sanding. Even if this isn't correct, why use something that will raise the grain unnecessarily (or are there other problems using non grain raising dyes?)

2 Should I just use a product like Rustins, which I think is an oil based stain which comes in a walnut or ebony? If I do, will I be able to use Ubeaut hard shellawax over it or is there another finish I should use, like a varnish? Will the shellawax work if applied over a non grain raising dye or stain?

Please help because I DON'T want to wreck this box at this late stage.

Thanks

Andrew

[martrix]

How about some pics?

[RufflyRustic]

Pics would be great.

You could also try a few finishes out on some scaps of the walnut.

cheers
Wendy