Sorry couldn't resist the pun.
I'm working on a new banjo project and, inspired by Paul Reed Smith Guitars, I plan to use dye to really "pop" the figure in the maple.
I know that the way to get the "pop" is to dye the wood, sand back, removing most of the dye, but leaving dye in the figure, then stain again.
I want the resulting finish to have a color like the circled area in the Honduras Mahogany in the attached picture. I've been experimenting with TransTint dyes, but I'm running out of sample wood to experiment on. So far, I've been using Cordovan and Brown, but it's coming out too brown. I know I need to add some red or orange, but I feel like I'm re-inventing the wheel
Does anyone here have experience with TransTint that they could share a recipe? . If anyone has advice or a recipe to share, I'd sure be grateful.
PS, here's a pretty nice example of how this can turn out. That's not the color I'm after, but you can see how dramatic the effect can be.
http://www.prsguitars.com/privatestock/gallery/1599.php