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I don't know if this topic has been dealt with before but I was wondering if it would be a good idea to mix shellac with a leather die and applie it to a stummel.
So instead of colouring first and applying shellac afterwards you could do it all at once.

Theoretically, you could add color to shellac. However, I think that I'd use concentrated dyes designed for tinting shellac and lacquers, rather than using leather dye.

The leather dye is designed to soak into the wood by a few microns, and color the wood. Well, it's actually designed for leather, but the formulation does work great on wood of all kinds.

However, when you tint a finish like shellac or lacquer, you're really just tinting the topcoat finish. There are tinted finishes out there, mostly polyurethanes (though you can find tinted shellacs), but they're not designed to soak into the wood at all - just sit on top of the wood and obscure the grain details with color. And that's not normally the effect you're looking for.

I would, however, suggest giving it a try if you think it might work - my thoughts above are mostly conjecture based on a handful of furniture projects on which I used a tinted polyurethane on otherwise unremarkable wood.

Kurt is right - coloring your topcoat has a purpose, but as a generic pipe finish, it will leave a lot to be desired. You'll have hardly any grain contrast.

Will it work? Yeah.

But there's a reason guys sell pipes at 1200 bucks when they take a day or two to finish them with a multi-coat process, and the reason is that the pipes look incredible.

Thanks, guys, for the advice.

I'll stick to the traditional way of doing things.

I'm waiting for my first delivery of shellac in the mail, can't wait to try it out (without the added colouring of course). I had a problem in the past with a red coloured pipe where the stain came of a bit during the first bowls. Probably the shellac will help.

It certainly will - shellac is unsurpassed as a sealer against bleed-thru of all kinds.