: The one question I have now is what species of wood will give me the best
: coloration for my inlay work. I need a red that matches the Canadian Maple
: Leaf and a blue that matches the Quebec Fleur-de-lis. I have thought about
: using wood dyes but for all intensive purposes, that seems like cheating
: considering what I want as a final product - original inlay work with no
: artificial colors.

For the colors you want, I'd go with dyes, but to keep the Canadian theme, I'd try to find dyes with a tie to Canada. For example, there are some rust red dyes made from an iron base, and an iron-based blue, too, which might be both permanent, and connected to natural iron ores found around the Great Lakes. There are also blue copper ores.

If you can find some appropriately colored stones along your journeys, and then pulverize them small enough to use as pigments, you might make your own stains. Throw your pigment into some shellac, thinned varnish, or lacquer and you should be able to make a diluted product which dries transpaprent enough that you can still see the wood under it, but dark enough to give you the colors you want. A very dilute stain and several coats might be the way to go. Since shellac and lacquer dry quickly and their solvents pull the material into the wood grain, I'd chose either of those bases over varnish.

Obviously you need to take a trip to a hardwoods section in a store supplying specialty woods to hobbiests. The materials there are probably the most expensive you can find if you would shop by the board foot, but they would tend to have small amounts of wild colors. You won't be using a lot of wood, so the high prices may not be out of line if you can find some exotic colors.

Remember too that some woods change colors based on the alkalinity. A few drops of lye, ammonia, vinegar, or battery acid can change them. This is not a dye, but a true chemical change in the wood itself. you might want to bring along a few cotton swabs and some of these chemicals when you go to check out the wood colors. Apply a drop on the endgrain of a board and probably no one will notice.

Just a few thoughts for you.

PGJ