: are there colored captains varnish?

: or can varnish be tinted?

Sure it can be tinted.

In fact, the additives which we desire most--the UV absorbing additives--could be considered "tints", as their yellowish color blocks the blue and UV light.

Most varnishes use a solvent similar to mineral oil or turentine. Witht hese you can use the same tinting materials used with oil-based paints. Some "varnishes" are thnnned with water, and for those you can use pigments designed for latex paints. With either you can mix in small quantities of dry pigments.

Before you tint the varnish, though, think about what you'll be doing in a few years. Varnish is easily damaged, and you'll probably go through a lot of layers of it when you sand away dings and dents, or remove loose or flaking areas, before re-varnishing every year or two. This could severly affect the evenness of color of a tinted area, as you could sand off part of it, but not all.

The result could look splotchy, and adding another coat of a tinted varnish would not help the matter. Light areas would go darker, but the dark areas would go darker still.

You might want to consider tinting some epoxy resin instead. That might be a bit more durable, allowing you to later remove the protecting varnish layer for reoating, while leaving the epoxy layer fairly intact.

Just a thought

PGJ