Rosewood

[tyrone]

I am looking to match a piece of furniture that i am making for a friend. The existing piece looks to be of a rosewood like stain. I was thinking of using U-Beauts water dyes to achieve a close colour match.
- The piece is clear pine MDF veneer,
- Has already been sanded to 1200 grit

I was going to use timbermate (pine tint) watered down as a grain filler then apply the stain and finish with white shellac. (all sprayed on)

The unit will be assembled after finishing, the boards are mainly 500 x 900mm

So, can the water dyes acheive a good match to rosewood and if so any hints on the mix? and does my method seem OK as this id the first time using this method. Up until now I just used wattle colourwood for the stain and Hicat 80 as the clearcoat. Its OK but I know i can do better.

[Neil]

If the original piece was professionally made and finished then it is more than likely that the rosewood colour was attained by adding spirit stain or analine dye to the lacquer and spraying it on.

It isn't too hard to match the colour but it is pretty hard to match the look of the lacquered finish through staining and then applying a clear finish. The water dye will leave the pine looking like pine, using colourwood or another turpenting based stain will hide the pine look better and be much cheaper and easier in the long run.

I would try something like their mahogany and if it isn't red enough add some red universal tint if it is too red add a tiny bit of green to kill the red. Don't add to the whole can, just to a small amount as a trial and then to a larger quantity. Just remember to make note of the amount you added to make the right colour then multiply it for the larger amount.

Hope this is of some help.

Cheers - Neil