After completing several coats of thinned amber shellac, the violin was ready for the first coats of varnish. As always there seem to be about a million methods and materials to add color to a violin. In the interest of continued simplicity I had elected to use some aniline dye - in this case the oil soluble variety so I could mix it with my first coat of polyurethane. I had heard good things about Ace Hardware's branded spar varnish, and decided to give it a try since it's readily available and affordable.
The color dye I ended up getting is entitled "Golden Maple" and in the images online - if built up in coats - eventually provides an even golden/brown. Since I'm going for more of a blonde-ish finish, I only added a coat or two just to counter some of the 'orange' of the amber shellac and add some brown-ish hues without actually turning the violin brown. You can see from the image at the top of the post how the color looks. It's not much different from the shellac, but just a bit deeper and richer. There are infinite gradations of color one could use, and I'm sure I'll explore that on subsequent projects, as the dye seems to stretch a ways when varnishing something this small.
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