Reply To: re-staining an old piano top with the correct color
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Hi David, it does sink in, at least half to a millimetre I would think. You can test that in a piece of wood, dye it and then cut it, although different kinds of wood probably absorb it differently. I’ve found beech difficult to work with.
If possible, I would try to test it first in a piece of the same type of wood and tone. If it is a thin layer of veneer, you probably wouldn’t be able to remove the dyed part without too much damage.
If all the colour came off readily when you scraped the finish (from the images, maybe it didn’t? it is difficult to tell), they probably didn’t use this type of dye originally. I hear you can dye your shellac with an alcohol based dye, like for leather, but I haven’t tried it myself. That may work nicely, but other coloured finishes I have tried, they look to me like they just sit on top in a weird manner.
M