This may be of interest to some here as it has been mentioned a few times. For those true blue wood workers who cringe at the thought of adulterated cellulose, please ignore this post :-)

I played around with some dyes this weekend (it was Easter, you know :-) trying to see what is feasible. I am mainly interested in application just prior to seal coating and glassing. The dyes do not penetrate deeply enough to handle scraping, planing or sanding. I had luck with some cases, but not in others. Bottom line: It takes very careful application to get sharp edges without bleeding. Masking was no help. The dyes travel through the wood fibers too easily. Scoring can work if done correctly. I'll see how all this works full scale later. The dyes used were Procion water based dyes. Usually used for tie dye. They do handle application of epoxy over them well, as seen below. The sample shown is cedar (no dye), spruce (no dye), and spruce (dyed black). Nice that the grain still shows through.

Bill