General Finishes Water Based Dye, 1 Gallon, Amber 1 Quart DQP 1

I love refinishing old furniture pieces that need some love. This is my go to color and I’ve used it on 4 pieces now including refinishing a wooden TV from 1953 and turning it into a cat bed. The color is rich, dark, consistent, and it gives my pieces the old school look and color I’m after. Usually takes two coats.

Went on good with a foam brush

I needed a uniform stain for hard-to-stain hard maple. Hard maple is notoriously difficult to stain. So, I tried this and this relates my experience. Prior to staining, I did a test on some maple scrap planks. I had 5 pieces and 3 of them were shellacked. I tested the light brown and medium brown stains on the non-shellacked boards first. The light brown stained piece looked a yellowish brown, very plain. The medium brown looked black and sooty. The next day, the shellacked boards were tested and their colors were similar although a bit lighter and the dye-stain could be wiped off with a Bounty. I mixed together the light brown and the medium brown and tested it on a shellacked board and it still looked the same as if only using the medium brown dye-stain, that is sooty-looking.The actual work pieces were large spinning wheel bobbins turned and sanded on my lathe. They were up to 3" in diameter made from multiple sheets of 4/4 maple glued up. Surface preparation was sanding up to 400 grit. They looked very smooth and polished. I applied the light brown dye-stain with a foam brush after vigorously shaking the closed can. The dye-stain dried in a minute or so. They looked terribly blotchy with accentuation of sanding marks and the interfaces between the glued-up pieces. The color was a dark brown. They did not at all appear anything like the test samples. My initial impression was severe disappointment. But wait:The next morning, they were fully dry, so I could handle them without gloves (and the dye-stain is a bit rough on nitrile gloves). They felt very rough. Since this is a water-based dye-stain, which would be expected to raise the grain, I sanded them with 220 paper. The color became a lighter brown, quite uniform, smooth and there was about an 80% improvement to their appearance. Because of the much lighter brown color, I restained them. This stuff dries in 2 hours and then they were rough again, but not as rough as after the first application. I sanded them lightly again with a resultant darker brown appearance that was not very uniform. Then I sprayed them with clear Zinsser shellac. The immediate result was that they looked suddenly and surprisingly almost awesome (I don't want to exaggerate). Since then, I applied so-called water-based polyurethane (actually it's acrylic) and then oil-based polyurethane and the pieces still look gorgeous.Compared to the Varathane Classic oil-based stains that I usually use, this dye-stain was more difficult and unpredictable. The results from test pieces didn't duplicate my results. Sometimes I can reuse nitrile gloves but although the dye washed off of them, they developed small holes or were sticky the next day. Foam brushes are hard to clean and I'm not sure they'll be able to be reused. But, I have never experienced such phenomenally excellent staining results on hard maple before and I plan to use this dye-stain again.[I also bought some orange and the thinner but have not opened them. Relative to the easily available oil-stains, these are much more expensive.]

This is one of the few products that actually penetrate hardwoods such as maple. All their products create beautiful colours as represented.

I love this stain color! I love the way it is easy to apply. It dries pretty quick and you can sand it off and try again... if you don't like what your workin on. Try it!