PreStain for sanding?

[J Shingler]

While at the seminars at the Kempton Gun Fair I attended one on stock finishes. Very well done. One part I missed was the presenter (I don't have my notes handy for his name) said he pre stains his stock with a light stain before using an Aqua Fortis or Iron Nitride stain. Says it just helps him find the scratches that he can work out by sanding or scraping before applying the Iron Nitride for his real color.  I missed what he used for this "Pre Stain". Did anyone catch what he uses or if you do this step in finishing, what do you use?

Thank you for any advise.

Jeff

[smylee grouch]

Would a diluted aqua fortis work for this?
 

[ScottH]

Sounds like Dave Person, aka Smartdog
I think he typically uses yellow stain and then gets to work sanding...

[Kmcmichael]

I use a yellow stain first. Lots of people do. I think it gives depth.

[Kevin Houlihan]

Mitch Yates and Tim Williams both gave seminars on finishing. I don’t remember what either said for a
pre-stain. It only needs to highlight scratches. Most or all of it will come back off the wood in final scraping or sanding.
Kevin Houlihan

[Hank*in*WV]

I use yellow food coloring.

[smart dog]

Hi Jeff,
You may be thinking about BJ Habermahl's and my presentation on the sequence of steps when building muzzleloading guns.  I advocate using dilute water based dyes such as aniline dyes during the whiskering process.  The color highlights scratches and rough spots allowing you to see them more clearly, particularly on light colored wood such as maple.  The stain gets scraped and sanded off and when the color is gone, you know you have covered the entire stock.  However, sometimes I use the "pre-stain" in ways that affect the final color and finish.  For example, cherry can be nice but it is often very boring looking.  The grain is fine and mostly featureless and even cherry with quilted or flame figure is so monotonically colored (meaning the figure is just different shades of the same basic color) that I find it mostly uninteresting.  To energize the appearance of cherry. I paint the stock with dilute black water-based stain during the whiskering process. Sanding and scraping remove the black but it remains imbedded in the grain. Then when I finish cherry, the imbedded black pigment acts like drop shadows in the wood creating a depth and hallo like appearance to the grain and color.  Here are examples of that process.

 










dave

[JTR]

That certainly looks good!
John

[bob in the woods]

I use yellow food coloring.

So do I   

[J Shingler]

Smart Dog hit it exactly what I was after.  "The color highlights scratches and rough spots allowing you to see them more clearly, particularly on light colored wood such as maple."  Although yellow food coloring sounds interesting.  But yes I am looking to make the areas that need a little bit more attention stand out so I can see them. So on maple what colors of the aniline dye do you like. A quick Google search turned out huge variety of colors. Yellow like the food coloring? Medium brown as this is to be a dark stock when finished?
Thank you all that have replied.

Jeff

[B.Habermehl]

Yellow dye will appear brownish on your rough spots. When the grain raises in those areas. Scratches will be just as evident. Any residual yellow stain just blends in the final staining. BJH

[sbowman]

i use orange rit all purpose dye as a prestain.  It's analine-aka-water soluble and at 4 bucks a bottle you will get you a lifetime supply. I mix it as well as my ferric nitrate solutions with water collected in my basement dehumidifier. 

Steve

[rtadams]

8-10-23

What color and mixture of which manufacture of aniline dye and water are recommended for the pre stain whiskering process on black walnut? Such as: 2 ounces of distilled water and 6 drops of the recommended aniline color dye.

Note: The Black Walnut wood is medium to dark in color, air dried for 30 years, about 100 years old when cut and grown in piedmont area of North Carolina.

Best Regards,

Robert