[...snip...]

I don't understand the distinction between stain and dye. I don't think we
share that terminology here where a stain is almost always a dye.

http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/w...oel_march.html
Stains vs. Dyes
By Alan Noel Stains vs. Dyes

Every quarter I teach a class on coloring wood and often the very
first question from the class is, "What are the differences between
stains and dyes?"

Very simply put, stains are very thin paints and dyes are why your
socks are red out of the washer. With stains, the pigment tends to
remain on the surface of the wood and lodge in the pores, while dyes
penetrate deeply and color the wood from within.

[...snip...]

Charles Neil has a video on his site somewhere where he opens some
cans of stuff labeled a "stain" by the manufacturer and says "this is
a dye" and vice versa.

So you can't rely on what the can says.

Although Larry's explanation is good, I have different ways of
thinking about it. If Larry's explanation wasn't totally clear, try
thinking about chicken broth vs chicken soup.

With chicken broth, you have essentailly a liquid. If you pour it
through a coffee filter, you will get broth at the other end.

With chicken soup, you have chunks of chicken floating in water. OK,
there's some broth there also, but ignore that. If you pour the soup
through a filter, you get water at the other end and pieces of chicken
stuck to your filter.

Similar to broth, a dye completely dissolves in the solvent and colors
wood when the colored solvent soaks into the surface. A stain colors
by pieces of pigment sticking to the surface. The pigment will tend to
stick more in pockets of grain after you apply it and wipe it off.
Think oak or ash and what happens when you embed stain particles in
those holes in the surface, then wipe off the surface. The contrast is
increased because less stain remains on the smooth parts of the
surface.

A stain on maple won't color as deeply or increase contrast as much as
a stain on oak. When you wipe the stain off maple, more of the pigment
is removed.



When people talk about stain "muddying the grain",besides simply
obscuring the grain, they may also mean that it interferes with
chatoyancy, that 3D effect you get on certain woods when you "pop" the
grain.
stain.