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Owner of this bad boy (high end coco) wants it to end up redder. When finished. My guess, after epoxy and endurovar, it will be a natural red/orange/brown. What dye would you use to pick up the red?

Red?
Sorry,
couldn't help myself.
Actually,
to be more helpful,
an aniline oxblood red might do the trick.

Owner wants more of a red hue. Thanks for the tip. But, I may have missed ur point

Ok, never mind. What I'm looking for is a dye that will create/elevate red hues. Owner is spending a ton on this one. Wants red. I don't argue. I've done some coco that had lots of red. This one has a lot of orange.

Ask Joe White or Brian Howard... Between those two there's about 40+ years of finishing experience.

Might be able to tint some lacquer thinner with some aniline dye to pop some of the red, you'd have to seal anything that wasn't to be red first though, wipe on some thinned out dye, then shoot your seal coats then top coat..... But I'm certainly no expert.

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Use bloodwood instead? Cocobolo usually oxidizes pretty dark. More of a reddish black. Dye will only darken it more.

Even bloodwood darkens quite a bit after a few years, but it retains most of the red hue... assuming it had it in the first place (a lot of bloodwood is pale).

The orange will normally darken to deep red after time. At least it always has for me.

I have not built with coco yet, and I probably will not due to fear of allergies. However, what I have in storage that started various shades of medium browns, oranges, etc. has turned extremely dark. As one post above noted, almost black. Does a finish stop this process? If not, whatever you do will darken so much that the client may eventually be unhappy. Perhaps you should advise the client.

Agreed. Here is a coco guitar I built. As you can see the set looked a lot more orange before it was finished.

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Dan

Dan, what I see in ur picture is what I expect to see in my case. And I've seen it I others I have built. Maybe one thing I could do is use West epoxy (clear) instead of Z-poxy

Dan, that is a knock out set! Mike, I wouldn't feel confident promising something like that. However, from what I've seen, coco does turn a darker red over time.

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Pat

Well since no one else has said it, there's basically two choices, either stain the wood, or use a color tint coat or two like electric builders.

I'd opt for that latter myself. Might be trickier with Enduro var than lacquer, but it'd still probably work. Add a few drops of dye to your first clear coat after sealing. Test on scrap, of course....

Any sort of red tint is going to darken the wood further, and I suspect getting too dark is going to be an issue, so +1 on the clear epoxy for fill rather than Zpoxy. In fact, I'd consider paste.

www.shellac.net
get some ruby shellac
use it as a sealer & base coat.

mike

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