One of the important tasks that tends to be overlooked in woodcraft is the manufacturing of stain, lacquers, and paints. The procedures themselves are not that difficult, however, it does sometimes require patience and hard work.

This book covers a very small portion of manufacturing finishes. Specifically, it describes the various pigments that are available.

There are several varieties of pigments available, and these can be divided into three categories: earth pigments, mineral pigments and plant pigments. On earth, the ancients literally had thousands of pigments available to them. While discussions on pigments and dyes usually is ordered by color, the following chapters will only describe a very minute number of pigments available, and therefore categorize them based on type of pigment.