My buddy wants me to make him a chocolate brown rod. Do I accomplish this  by flaming, or by baking in the oven. If its by flaming, I understand the process, but if its by baking, I am worried that the time involved will trash the strips. The test strips I have done on blonde strips, only have changed the color a few shades to a nice golden brown. This is for 20 minutes at 350. Any more, and I feel I might be asking for trouble.  (Mark Bolan)

This might send some into a low orbit.  In a convection type oven, I have cooked bamboo for 2 hours @ 250, 1 hour @ 300, then 1 hour @ 400. The result was a deep chocolate brown which was quite attractive. For other reasons the 5 foot section was not immediately used. One day on a whim I bent the section into a complete circle. Upon release a set was noticeable but the section became straight again by the next day.  It became a 5 foot 4 wt which cast very well. The same heat process has been used several times since to make rods with alternating strip colors without problems. There is a word of caution in that all ovens are not the same. I am sure there are stories of disaster with lessor temperatures.  Good luck and watch the color.  (George Rainville)

I was able to dye a blank dark brown by soaking it in dark walnut wood dye powder from Woodcraft, dissolved in water.  Depending on the glue you use, you might want to do the strips before glueup, then dry them out again before gluing.  Some of the wood dyes are soluble in either water or alcohol.

Experiment with a couple scrap strips first, of course, to make sure you get the color you want and find out how long to soak.  (Frank Stetzer, Hexrod, Taper Archive, Rodmakers Archive)

You can flame to get a brown color. However, getting that certain light brown takes a little practice in most cases.

There is ammonia toning too, but I have 0 knowledge on that subject.   A few of the books describe how it is done.  (Tony Miller)