Workers Of Wood

One of the finishing techniques I use a lot is using a glaze.

A glaze is a finishing product that is heavy on pigment and light on binders (varnish, oil, whatever). It is applied BETWEEN coats of finish.

On a solid finish, it adds some highlights. On a clear finish, you can use to "dirty up" the finish and make it look aged and not bright and shiny new. But perhaps the most common reason that I use it is to adjust the color. You can add some color, shift colors or darken colors. They work very well when you are trying to match an existing finish because they have a long open time and you can wipe off a lot or a little, or even apply a second color in process. You generally apply with a cloth or brush. There are even aerosol spray versions, but you need to manipulate with a cloth, so I'm not sure of the utility of that other than packaging. You can also use to highlight open grain like in oak, add contrast to moldings, carvings, raised panels, etc.

I have 20 or so that I have made for water borne finishes and a few more purchased one for other finishes such as lacquer, shellac, or varnish. They tend to go by their base pigment names and not things like "American Maple" or "Dark Walnut."

Some people use gel stains as a glaze. I never have, but might be a way to find them easier.

The ones I use most, probably in order:

- Warm Brown (sorry this is an exception to the naming rule.) It's an old standby from Guardsman, before they were bought by Lilly, who was bought by Valspar, who was bought by Sherwin-Williams. Hopefully, you can find a Valspar dealer who has the UTC formula for adding to a glaze base.

- Burnt Umber -- a dark red, to shift to red

- Van Dyke Brown -- a dark, blac- sh, brown

- Raw Umber -- a darkish green, used to tone down too much red

- Black

- White

- Cordovan -- dark purple (to kill yellow)

- Raw Sienna -- yellowish

- Burnt Sienna -- bright red

Because it has so few binders, you need to topcoat with a compatible finish after 24 hr dry time. An exception is if you top coat with a lacquer, they can "burn thru" and often have a 30-120 minute window in which to do this.

A little goes a long way. I quart of a given color would probably last your lifetime unless you are doing an entire house.

Sample colors from one vendor: https://distributorserviceinc.com/PDF/M ... -sheet.PDF

Glazes to add other colors A glaze to highlight engravings A glaze to highlight roundovers and grain (white oak) A glaze to "dirty up" painted surfaces A glaze to correct what turned out to be way to red, despite going off a previously done step chart for this color A glaze to go over white lacquer for 'effect'

There's obviously a science to this...and at the same time the art as seen by the maker...

You're making me feel like I should never use redi-mix finishes again... Not that that's a bad thing, BTW...

Hate to admit it but finishing has always been a surprise for me. The worst for me is Red Oak...some of the grain takes stain and some of it doesn't...I have even found myself staining "between the lines"...

This and the recent threads on dyes is giving me a whole different perspective...thanks for that...

Here is a really good resource on glazing. Sue was a local refinisher/finisher. The book is a series of projects, step-by-step, using various techniques and most of them involve a glaze. (disclaimer: Sue is an acquaintance of mine and I helped a bit with this book).

Unfortunately, it's getting harder to find as it's 22 years since publishing and the publisher is now out of business. Can still find some used or in libraries.

https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Wood-Fin ... oks&sr=1-1

'Sfunny you should mention glazing. I've been playing with RIT fabric Dye for the past month. It's easy to use, inexpensive and readily available in a complete spectrum
https://www.ritdye.com/?s=wood
On my first project I used the dye as a wash, and top coated with clear gloss poly urethane. I wasn't very happy with the appearance, unevenness with little control.
To be fair the RIT article did suggest wetting the wood first, and not applying the dye until the wood had partially dried. That's basically the same technique you'd use when doing a wash in watercolour painting; I should have known better.
So, now we come to glazing. I added a very small amount of dye to some waterbourne poly that I poured off. Too be clear the dyes are very potent: a few drops are all that's needed.
in the attached pictures, the colour rendition is pretty poor. The actual appearance is much more vivid. Sorry, i don't know why the top one duplicated...
In any case, in that top one the upper sample is brushed on dye (foam brush) 125ml in 2l of water, top coated with two coats of gloss poly
...no attempt to get any kind of decent finish; just some Spruce 1x4 scraps.
The 2nd pic is of some Kappla block containers, brushed on dye and two top coats of poly.[RIT 'Tangerine'] Fairly decent rendition of the actual colour.
The bottom one is of a sample that has, on the right, nothing, then 1 coat of glaze, then two coats, and finally three coats. Almost perfect evenness of colouration and a nice build of colour depth as the layers are added.
laying on top is a Kappla block that I dipped in RIT 'Royal Blue' solution...no poly.
Sitting below the stepped sample is a dippedKappla block in Tangerine, a block of Western maple with one end dipped, and a piece of Walnut dipped.
This is the important point about dyes and glazes; the colour you see is reflected light from the substrate, the wood species, filtered through the dye colour. Think of gels used in stage lighting.
If the wood is dark brown, a blue dye/glaze is pointless, other than killing any red tones. A red dye/glaze on the other hand will enhance the red tones in the wood
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If I understand you right, you are adding color to a finish and applying it. This is a "toner" AKA "shader." I think of a shader as a toner that is applied selectively such as on the edge of a piece. I have used these extensively in touch up work to restore, blend and match color. Some are dye based and some are pigment based. Toners and glazes both have their place and use.

Technically, I think Polyshades is a toner, though it is really heavy in color and difficult to apply without streaking or getting opaque. It's funny, I have a finishing book published in 1952 and the author talks about how terrible "varnish stains" (as he call them are). Nearly 70 years later, they're still out there. A friend calls Polyshades, "The worst thing to happen to a can."

You're undoubtedly correct in the terminology, Keith, but what then are the components of 'glaze' as it applies to wood finishing?

The RIT dyes are water soluble and don't appear to have any solids to precipitate out.
Incidentally, the RIT website mentions using Isopropyl alcohol as an alternative to water; that might be an interesting avenue to follow up on if one wanted extremely fast drying(?).
The thing about the fabric dyes is that they bring vivid colours into the toolkit for finishing. Maybe what someone is looking for in the case of framing art?
Or kids toys?

There are three components of any finish products, present in varying amounts from 0-100%
• Resin
• Thinner and/or solvent
• Pigment and/or dye

For example
- Boiled linseed oil -- all resins
- Varnish - resins and thinner
- Wiping varnish - resins and more thinner
- Lacquer - resin, solvents, and thinners
- Shellac - resin and solvent
- Stripper - solvents
- Toner - resin, thinner/solvent, and small amount of pigment and/or dye
- Glaze - heavy pigment, thinner, a little resin
- Stain - moderate pigment and/or dye, thinner, maybe resin (depending on type)
- Paint - Heavy pigments, resins, thinner

Exceptions and add-ons:
There might be helpers such as ingredients to slow or accelerate curing/drying, change viscosity such as thixotropic (thickening) agents, lubricants, etc. Some colorants work by chemical reaction and not a dye or pigment, e.g., bleaches, lye, potassium permanganate.

https://www.woodworkersjournal.com/glaz ... olor-wood/
https://www.finewoodworking.com/2007/05 ... ying-glaze
https://www.popularwoodworking.com/proj ... rom-a-pro/

I worked for about 6 months in a mantle factory once that had a contract with the Regency brand heater company. We made them out of veneer covered particle board with wood moldings attached. As everyone knows two pieces of the same wood don't always stain the same and towards the end we were using a lot of polar moldings because maple was so hard to work with so the poplar had to be made to look the same as the maple after staining. Everything was stained fairly dark btw. We had two guys in the paint room and they used tints with lacquer to do that and you couldn't tell a difference when they were done.

The only locally available hardwood here is white birch which is about as bad as cherry to stain. I've pretty much given up on trying. On the old forum a member from Alaska was in the same situation and he said the same thing. Would a glaze solve that problem by tinting after the wood was sealed?

Found a good article in my archives

kmealy wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 5:46 pm Here is a really good resource on glazing. Sue was a local refinisher/finisher. The book is a series of projects, step-by-step, using various techniques and most of them involve a glaze. (disclaimer: Sue is an acquaintance of mine and I helped a bit with this book).

Unfortunately, it's getting harder to find as it's 22 years since publishing and the publisher is now out of business. Can still find some used or in libraries.

https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Wood-Fin ... oks&sr=1-1

Ordered it, got it...quite the book...sure will enjoy going through it...thanks