re: Coloring wood?

Much, if not most , of the non-artisan produced furniture these days is finished with tinted lacquer and has been for 60 years at least.  It allows them to get a uniform color over the entire piece and every piece they produce regardless of the type of wood or source of wood.  I discovered this after stripping several mid century modern pieces and finding that most of the color comes off with the top coat.   This set of chairs was produced in the early 60s.   Once stripped, I found out just how non-uniform the wood of different pieces  really are  underneath the finish .  In the past, I usually stained these MCM pieces to get the color back but last year I used a tinted lacquer top coat for a set of chairs I refinished for my wife.  It took some practice to get the color right because I was trying to match a table that was not being refinished but I got pretty close.

The first picture is after stripping and prep for finishing.  It is actually not as obvious just how much lighter the arms were than the rest of the chair in this picture.  The back and seat frame were walnut veneer and they tended to be much darker after stripping than parts that were solid wood like the legs and frame around the back.    After first stripping, the solid pieces were so light, I wondered if they were actually walnut at all.  As light as they are, I thought the arms might be oak. 

After refinishing with tinted  lacquer and sprayed with several layers of clear lacquer.

To get this color, I had to use two different versions of brown tinted lacquer. one was greener and the other redder.  One thing that I learned from  what I read about color theory in regards to refinishing is that if something is too red, you add green and if too green, you add red so I basically had to go back and forth between the two colors until I snuck up on a color that was close to the table.  I used a leaf to help gauge when to stop adding the tinted lacquer.  This was the first chair.  BTW, one thing that I have noticed on MCM pieces at least is that the chairs and base are often finished to be darker than the table tops. 

  Still an amateur at this but overall,  but I got a pretty uniform look across all the chairs, though the lighting and sheen  in this picture makes it a little hard to tell.