Bell & Son Boucher kit build side

Comment by Strumelia on July 11, 2012 at 8:19pm

What a beauty!

Comment by Liam Ryan on July 12, 2012 at 3:02am

Beautiful! What sort of dye and shellac did you use?

Comment by Dave Culgan on July 12, 2012 at 7:00am

Thanks, its my 'yellow gal'. I used "Dark Vintage Maple" transtint dye and regular Zinsser amber shellac, pretty much per Terry's instructions. I also used a chemical oxidizer (potassium dichromate) as a first step to blacken the 'flames' in the curly maple neck, mainly because I just happened to have some available. Because of its toxicity (check the MSDS) I can't really recommend it and I think you could do just as well with an initial black dye, mostly sanded off to achieve the same look. This is what Terry shows in his video. Dave Culgan

Comment by Dave Culgan on July 12, 2012 at 2:07pm

I used denatured alcohol not wanting to raise the grain again (already did that with water), adding drop by drop into a small qty until it appeared sufficiently strong when wiping on the test piece, but don't get the wrong idea that I know what I'm doing. That was proven out when the neck fell off the wimpy hook I had it hanging from while trying to dye the last bit of the dowel stick. Peg head down onto concrete from a couple of feet. Maple is pretty hard but concrete is harder. Steam is your good friend in these situations and the dent came out with minimal sanding.

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