Dyed Cottonwood Jar

What a lovely piece! May I ask how you do your texturing? I had a similar experience with dying Cottonwood. The chatoyance was amazing.

OUTSTANDING~!!!!! I have no cottonwood here...but I might be able to do something like that with Maple that has mice curl/figure. Can you share your method and materials used to attain this amazing " on fire" look?

Looks like leather dyes were used after sanding back the first color, Nice job. If I had to guess it looks like black then sanded back British tan , then sanded maybe yellow? Regardless it turned out wonderful.

Love this one Curt, its a real standout piece

Will Armstrong said:

What a lovely piece! May I ask how you do your texturing? I had a similar experience with dying Cottonwood. The chatoyance was amazing.

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Thanks! Most of my burning tips are homemade but easy to make. The stipple area is just a bent nichrome wire, red hot. It works faster than the regular ball tip burning tips. The other is a a piece of nichrome wire wrapped around an 8d finish nail, also used red hot. I have several of these with 4,5,6...wraps.

Tim Tucker said:

OUTSTANDING~!!!!! I have no cottonwood here...but I might be able to do something like that with Maple that has mice curl/figure. Can you share your method and materials used to attain this amazing " on fire" look?

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Thanks. As Will A. said cottonwood can have amazing chatoyance. That's most of the secret. Curly maple will probably do the same. This is dyed black first, inside and out, then sanded back to expose some of the chatoyance (320 grit), then dyed yellow, and then blue. I was going for a deep green color but I didn't like the way it turned out. So I sanded it back again and dyed it orange. All with Craftsupplies Artisan dyes. Finally, several coats (6 or 8) of deft gloss lacquer. It's a little hard to see in the photo but there are traces of all those colors in there.

I think due to the Cottonwood's softness it sponges up the dye readily. This may help with the depth of colour.

Curt Fuller said:

Thanks! Most of my burning tips are homemade but easy to make. The stipple area is just a bent nichrome wire, red hot. It works faster than the regular ball tip burning tips. The other is a a piece of nichrome wire wrapped around an 8d finish nail, also used red hot. I have several of these with 4,5,6...wraps.

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Thank you Curt! May I ask which burning devise you use?

Will Armstrong said:

Thank you Curt! May I ask which burning devise you use?

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I use a Burnmaster, the single unit and I use their pen that accepts the homemade tips. Not a recommendation by any means, I just got interested in the heavy burning (branding) from watching some Molly Winton videos on youtube and that's what she was using. I think they're all about the same and there are also plenty of plans out there for making your own from battery chargers.

Great Job