I suck at this part

[DC]

I making this Vine Maple bow. Boring old white wood. I thought I would try staining it. I thought maybe a greenish look. I put on a coat of wood preservative and it turned brilliant green. Too much. I thought maybe brown would tone it down. I have no colour sense. The brown helped a bit but there are still bright green spots. I tried to take some pictures but they are so-so in showing what I've got. What would you artistic guys do with this?

[Pat B]

Hand rub it with finely ground charcoal and oil or water.The charcoal gets in the grain and gives it a nice, subtle coloration.

[mullet]

Try using green leather dye. I have good results with it. But, also with vine maple it's important to get all of the cambium off, which is hard.

[PatM]

Stain it jet black with leather dye.

[DC]

 The charcoal sounds like a plan. I wonder if powdered graphite would work?

I would have to order green leather dye. can you thin out the dye so it isn't so overpowering?

Jet black would cover all the sins but I can always do that. I'll save that one for last.

[PatM]

Get some green aniline dye from Lee Valley in Forest Green.

[mullet]

The thing about the leather dye is you can keep wiping it down while it's wet with a rag till you get the look you want.

[DC]

I tried the graphite and it darkened it some but the green still showed. My wife said that red countered green so I tried some cherry stain. That turned it bright reddish pink so I grabbed a rag with lacquer thinner on it and started wiping it off. It would remove it while the lacquer thinner was fresh but after a few wipes it wouldn't change colour any more. Fresh LT and it got lighter. Much like what you say about the leather dye, Mullet Got to the point where I just couldn't get rid of some of the red so I wiped on some Black Walnut Watco Oil. Not quite jet black but it will do. It's your basic brown bow now but I think I learned a thing or two. It still needs a few coats of tung oil so that will brighten it up some. I'm just making up my Christmas Lee Valley list so I will put some Forest green on it.
Thanks guys

[High-Desert]

I know this won’t help at this point, but when I use dyes, all make a swatch on the same wood until I find The color I want. I used a combo of 4 WD Lockwood dyes, using a dropper, I recorded the drops of each dye into a small container. I finally found the green I wanted after trying over 50 combinations.

[DC]

Do you thin the dye and use multiple coats? Whenever I use dye I seem to have dark areas where I start and then it lightens up as I move the rag around.

[High-Desert]

I usually put on a heavy dose on with a foam brush. This is for water based, haven’t used alcohol boded other than leather dye, but I don’t wipe down as it thins it too much. I do use several coats sometimes

[DC]

You must like your colours way darker than me. I've got some brown leather dye that I thinned out something like 3-1 and it still goes on too dark for my liking.

[High-Desert]

The leather dyes are a bit different, I thin those out quite a bit with denatured alcohol, you can also wipe them down with a rag that has DNA on it. Unless I want dark, I don’t use leather dyes on wood. The water based dyes work really well.

[simson]

what about using walnut hulls or vinegar/steel wool stain?

[DC]

Walnut hulls could be tough to find here, there are no walnut trees . Vinegar/steel wool may be a plan for next times.