ToddJohnson wrote:It's not a dark stain on top of a light stain. The stain consists of 2 parts, a base and a catalyst. Both are clear liquids (one tinted a bit blue and the other a bit yellow). You apply chemical A and then heat it. The pipe will turn splotchy yellow. You then apply chemical B and heat it (it's not flamable). It turns jet black at this point. Then you hit the pipe with the buffing wheel, just to knock off some of the color. Then the pipe is hand sanded with 400-600. The more porous grain retains the black color and the less porous grain gives it up. Once the pipe has been sanded a coat of yellow (i.e. "natural") French stain is applied. The process works no differently than any other contrast finish, it just creates sharper contrast. I haven't read the pages and pages of theory in this thread, but this comes from personal experience with lab stain. Tom's works a little differently than mine, but only nominally so.ArtGuy wrote:"Chemical Dyes" (that's what they called it on the german website) interacting with the tanning agents to build up coloured molecular structures make up a "positive picture" due to the higher content of the tanning agents in the hard wood parts. Soft wood = lighter tone, hard wood = darker tone.
That's what I am thinking about.
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That would explain why I have seen Eltang putting the black chemical stain on top of the lighter stain to get contrast. I wondered if I was seeing that correctly.
Todd
OK that explaines it. I was confused because it appeared when he was sanding he was taking off a sheet of black leaving a yellow and black contast in the uncovered areas. I assumed the yellow color was stain but it must have been bare wood and the color on my monitor was screwy. (Screwy btw is a technical art term used when describing inaccurate color
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