I am wanting to stain some hickory lams to be used in a glass bow glue up.  Can I use regular minwax stain?  Any suggestions/advice on staining lams would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Jerry

NO! Don't use oil base stain your bow will delam, you need to use alcohol or water base and let dry completly, I normally use transtint dye and delute with denature alcohol till I get the color i'm looking for.  Lee

I figured somebody was going to say something like that!  

What is "transtint dye" and any chance in me buying something like that locally?  Can alcohol or water based stains be purchased at the big home stores?

Thanks for the help.

Do you have a woodcraft store near you-they carry both. Rit dye mixed with alcohol will work too.

I would second the RIT die. You can get it at most fabric and sewing stores. I never have died my lam's, only oak board bows. I have been curious to try and mix some in with the smooth on so I wouldn't have to deal with re-drying the lams.

Smooth on makes a stain for the epoxy.  It really doesn't change the color of the wood much.  I mixed it dark brown and used it on some Curly Maple limbs.  It made things a little darker but not much.

Water based stains kinda fur up the wood a bit and aren't really sharp.  

Use the alchol / methanol based stains. Rit mixed with denatured alchol works fine.

I'm in the process right now of using RIT dye with denatured alcohol(for the first time) on a board bow and it's working pretty well.  Just taking a break from the bow to read here a little bit.

The alcohol based dye does not seem to raise the grain much at all.

Some good advice there!

Jerry, is this your UBI bow?  :D

Thanks for all the info guys.  No Woodcraft store here but there is a stoplight about half an hour away!  I can get RIT dye at the grocery store.  I've used it to color arrows and feathers in the past.  I'll try it on my hickory lams.  

Kenny, you are awful funny for a guy with one leg!  I've decided to build me a bow just like the banquet bow I built - hedge handle and hickory lams.  The banquet bow came out too light colored with the hickory lams.  I want to try to darken them up some on this next one.  I'm saying that I'm building this one for me, but somehow after giving away the first 37 bows I've built I don't like my chances for keeping it!  

By the way, I'm going to need some more glass soon.  I'll be in touch.

Jerry I recently used some Feiblings leather dye (Tandy leather supply) on maple lams and it worked well with the smooth on.  However when used some of the same stained lams with Urac 185 on an all wood bow, the stan ran terribly bad.

I know you can take nut shells like walnut and crush them up and mix with denatured alcohol to make your own stain.  Be hard to get the exact color you want though.  But it does make a nice color stain. in my opinion that is

Kenny what did your bro stain those curly maple limbs with? They look awesome!

2 colors of lockwood dye from binghams I had laying around for several years. First with silver grey, then again with walnut(I think!)

They look like tigerstripe camo, pretty cool

I had a 1x10 8' that I had to run thru the sander to get the stain off it before he got the color he wanted! LOL