That looks a bit better

As you may remember from yesterday, by back-stool stain came out a bit darker than I would have liked.  Well a bit of finishing magic and things are looking better.  I mixed up some red mahogany TransTint dye and some water and applied to the the test piece of poplar.  When I wiped up the excess I noticed that the a significant amount of the van dyk stain had come away and the wood looked significantly lighter.  I decided to throw caution to the wind and applied it to the entire chair and low and behold things look a lot better.

I had also been experimenting with some pigmented oil but mixing 1 part gum turpentine with 2 parts boiled linseed oil and adding some Warm Cyprus Umber pigment.  I decided to apply it to the chair as well.

A coat of boiled linseed oil a few hours later and things are starting to look up.

The right most board has opposite grain direction which explains why it looks different.