MIMF

Any suggestions for what to use to tint an oil based varnish (Z-Spar's Captains Varnish). I'd like the first couple coats to be a slightly darker amber color than the finish coats.

Aniline dye or Transtint.

Thanks Barry,

When I search Stewmac for aniline, the search returns ColorTone Liquid Stains, though I can't find the term aniline anywhere. I have a bunch of these and have used them in shellac and water base finishes but not oil base varnish. The description says "ColorTone stains can be mixed directly into virtually any finish: nitrocellulose lacquer, shellac, water base finishes, and catalyzed varnishes or lacquers". Not specifically oil based varnish, but "virtually any finish" sounds promising. I'll give it a try on a sample and see what happens.

Craig, let us know how your test goes. Oil-based finishes are conspicuously absent from any toner compatibility list I've seen for TransTint and joewoodworker.com lists them as incompatible.

Okay, I mixed up a small batch of varnish with more dye (ColorTone Stain) than I would normally use in order to exaggerate any incompatibility and put a thick coat on a piece of cedar. I didn't get an explosion when I mixed the varnish and stain together and no obvious oil and water kind of refusal to mix. Looks good so far, we'll see how it dries. More in a day or two.

Just a quick note to say the Z-Spar Captain's Varnish with an excessive amount of ColorTone Liquid Stain seems to have dried perfectly well. Good gloss, dried to the expected hardness in 24 hours, no separation or other indication of a compatibility problem. I'll be using it in combat soon.

Very nice! Thanks for the report.

Yes, thanks for the follow-up Craig.
It's great to know that ColorTone is compatible with oil based varnish.

ColorTone is the same thing as Transtint.

Barry, Do you mean it's Colortone is similar, or do you mean it's actually made from the same company and re-labeled?

The latter.

They are exactly the same.
If you have a bottle of each (which I do) it is obvious that they are simply re-labeled for sale.

The 'universal tints' used in industry are also called MEK dispersion dyes. MEK (methyl ethyl ketone) is a nearly universal solvent and will help blend many dissimilar finish substances, and usually a little bit goes a long way. I am not advising mixing oil varnish and lacquer together, but for mixing colors into finish that don't mix readily the MEK really helps make it flow.

Jeff Jewitt, maker of Transtint, at his Homestfinishing forum warns that he does not recommend mixing it with mineral spirit based oil finishes (e.g, Tru-oil, Waterlox, etc.). While he suggests he has an expensive additive that will make it work, he recommends dying the wood, then finish with the oil varnish. When pressed about the additive, he declined to provide/sell it.

On the telecaster forum, someone suggested the additive was ethoxylated alcohol, which he found and tried and worked well. Others there reported that mixing it straight (no additive) worked for them. Pictures of their results using amber tint on a maple neck, looked nice, if subtle. Still others reported the tint precipitated out of the oil somewhat quickly.

I'm considering spraying transtint in alcohol (Preval) with or without rather dilute shellac, then following with tru-oil or waterlox.

When we first made TransTint years ago, in the days before VOC compliant varnishes, there was enough compatibility between varnishes and TransTint to get them to mix - either with or without the addition of acetone or MEK. Now that doesn't work. For example TransTint doesn't mix with Waterlox, Pure Linseed oil, Tung oil or Tru-Oil unless you use our additive (which yes is a type of ethoxylated alcohol). We do now offer the additive on our eBay Store. At first I brought it in only for large users of TransTints that really wanted to mix TT with oils (log home builders)
Personally you'll get deeper and more vibrancy from the TransTint if you use it as a stain first (mixed with water or alcohol) and then apply an oil finish over it.

Jeff

Thanks Jeff, for the update/details. Nice to get the real lowdown, rather than assembling clues from assorted folks with limited experience.