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[QUOTE=HankMauel] From WAY BACK in the days of radio...BTV (before television)...I remember from some unnamed comedy show that the color puce was defined as a 50-50 mixture of Welch's Grape Juice and Donald Duck orange Juice.
Now..why does THAT stick in my mind? I dunno...maybe just a moment of clarity as I drift in and out of the fog of age. [/QUOTE]

Hank, you sure that isn't puke?

_________________
Scott Thompson
Port Townsend,WA

"In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room"
-Billy Bragg

Is there not any place where you could buy maple dyed blue already? I have bought red, green and even navy blue before from Constantines
Sure would save you alot of trouble and mess.

This gives me an idea actually, all the talk of pressure cooking. My girlfreind has one of those seal-a-meal units and one of the coolest things I've done with it involves marinating steaks in like 20 minutes. Apparently the vacuum makes the stuff soak into the meat quicker and at that point it's just a matter of letting the enzymes do their thing, not near as long a wait as it takes to soak all the way through the meat.

Sooo... Perhaps if you already have a vacuum clamp unit you could just get a pvc pipe the appropriate length, put a hole in the top and hook the hose into that. Put the wood and just enough mixed dye to cover it (set on it's side) in there and then suck all the air out. Maybe it would allow the dye to penetrate further? If you already have the vacuum pump it'd be like an extra 5-6 bucks for enough 1-1/2" pvc and some ends, and whatever a fitting for the hose would cost. I have no idea how sound this idea is and it's probably just craziness but maybe it's worth a shot?

If it works just call it "The Randello amazing dye machine", that's all I ask

[QUOTE=Scott Thompson] [QUOTE=HankMauel] From WAY BACK in the days of radio...BTV (before television)...I remember from some unnamed comedy show that the color puce was defined as a 50-50 mixture of Welch's Grape Juice and Donald Duck orange Juice.
Now..why does THAT stick in my mind? I dunno...maybe just a moment of clarity as I drift in and out of the fog of age. [/QUOTE]

Hank, you sure that isn't puke? [/QUOTE]

No. It was Puce alright. Part of the bit kept using "puce and chartreuse" (for it's rhymming quality)...sort of like the "honorary" colors of the program. Wish I could remember the program name, but that was circa 1950 and it takes a LONG time to retrieve data that old of "MY hard drive"! HankMauel38485.468287037

Ok Hank here is a data test for you hard drive dating from your radio show days

There was a radio character named Geldersleeve that always came on scene when called, with the statement "Yeeeesss" (a deep voice and long drawn out Yes)

What was the name of the two main characters i.e. the name of the show?

If you can answer this you win a prize
MichaelP38485.4828356481

[QUOTE=mcrandello]Sooo... Perhaps if you already have a vacuum clamp unit you could just get a pvc pipe the appropriate length, put a hole in the top and hook the hose into that. Put the wood and just enough mixed dye to cover it (set on it's side) in there and then suck all the air out. [/QUOTE] Suck all the air - and the water, and the dye - should make the vacuum pump real happy.

[QUOTE=Brock Poling] [QUOTE=Dave-SKG] What is that Puce? [/QUOTE]

It is a color.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Brock ... I guess I was thinking of the English/Spanish word.

_________________
Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

I dye my maple bindings and purfluings as well as make my rosettes out of dyed maple veneer. It's taken me a couple of years to get the process down. I use a fairly large pressure cooker at very high pressure for two hours. I wrap the maple in a coil against the inside wall of the pressure cooker and turn the maple once with the inside facing out. you need patience to let the pressure cooker cool down or it explodes dye all over (ask me how I know). Vacumn does not work, I've tried. All the bindings and inlays in this picture are dyed using the pressure cooker
2005-05-13_120847_fheel11.jpg

[QUOTE=rlabbe] Suck all the air - and the water, and the dye - should make the vacuum pump real happy.

[/QUOTE] What I was trying to convey was that the water/alcohol/dye stuff should only be enough to cover the wood when it's layed on it's side. You could even tip the thing up to remove the air then lay it flat again. Here's a picture of the marinating can that seal a meal uses:
http://www.rivalproducts.com/eStore/product.aspx?CatalogId=5 &CategoryId=1188&ProductId=695
Note the valve is well above the liquid
edit: unless these things are strong enough to collapse the tube Maybe a dry run first to make sure that can't happen.

edit2: Apparently it won't work. Thanks for keeping me from wasting my time this weekend, Daryl :)mcrandello38485.5189699074

daryl

do you soak bindings first to get them flexible enough to coil into the cooker?

It's a large sized canning pressure cooker and I laminate the bindings from veneer after they are dyed.   When the laminates are glued together with cynoacrylate (super glue), you don't see the joints and they are flexible enough that they don't require using a bending iron or my fox side bender. If I require more of a bend I soak them. It's very time consuming and rquires patience but the end result is worth it.

As for the vacumn pump. I have a fairly powerfull vacumn clamping system for laminating carbon fibre to wood etc. and it coudn't pull the dye into the wood even after 24 hours.

have you tried softening normal thickness bindings to get them into the cooker? i think having to laminate the bindings might be bit too time consuming for me.

i haven't done any cf laminated bracing but have been considering venturing there after reding up on it and getting a bit of first hand information from mario.

rather lamely, i hadn't even thought of using my vacuum bracing frames to clamp the laminations. thanks for pointing my depleted grey matter in that direction. crazymanmichael38485.671724537

[QUOTE=Daryl] I dye my maple bindings and purfluings as well as make my rosettes out of dyed maple veneer. It's taken me a couple of years to get the process down. I use a fairly large pressure cooker at very high pressure for two hours. I wrap the maple in a coil against the inside wall of the pressure cooker and turn the maple once with the inside facing out. you need patience to let the pressure cooker cool down or it explodes dye all over (ask me how I know). Vacumn does not work, I've tried. All the bindings and inlays in this picture are dyed using the pressure cooker
[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the tip. Now at least my wifes pressure cooker may see some action.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

My wife has a pressure cooker. It's main job is a steam generator for my luthierie

Hmnnn ... why couldn't one cannibalize the pressure valve from an old pressure cooker (from Goodwill, say) and install it in a 32-inch section of 2-inch diameter galvanized steel pipe capped off at each end with threaded caps. You would then have a custom pressure cooker made just for dyeing bindings.

As far as safety is concerned, the typical pressure cooker valve is designed to maintain a pressure of about 15 PSI (about one atmosphere.) I haven't looked up the pressure rating for 2-inch schedule 40 galvanized steel pipe lately, but I'm pretty sure it could easily handle maybe ten times that pressure. Most of those valves are threaded into the pressure cooker lid with a small pipe thread.

Just an idle thought.

_________________
D..

Hey Randy, check out this link: Pressure Dying Wood. Apparantly, it can be done with vacuum pressure.Neil38486.017974537

I read the artical, the vacumn is used to remove air from the wood and then the chamber is taken up to 120 lbs positive pressure for a couple of hours. He is still using high pressure to force the dye into the wood. The process is the same as that used in the preservative treatment of commercial wood