I'm going to be building a Bingham take down recurve and I've got some awesome looking quarter sawn white oak that I'm going to be using for the riser. The lams are going to be ash under clear glass. I had a can of Minwax "Gunstock" stain that I tried out on a scrap of the white oak and I really liked how it popped the grain without changing the color too much. However, the Minwax is oil based so definitely a no-go on that for staining lams before glue up. I've heard of guys using dyes to stain light colored woods prior to glue-up. I'm assuming the dyes are probably similar to leather dyes? I know a lot of guys use leather dyes to stain bamboo before applying a final finish. Ideally, I'd like to get some kind of dye to closely match the effect I'm getting with the gunstock finish. What dye brand do you guys recommend - oh yeah, I'm using Smooth-On for the glue-up.
I use analine dye for laminations. Your right about oil based stains, don't use them. I have had bad experiences refinishing rifle stocks with leather dye, seems that even the alcohol based dye left an oily residue that fullerplast wouldn't stick to.
Use water base analine, alcohol base isn't colorfast and will fade in time, you can get analine at Bingham projects or woodworking stores.