You’re right @toddhacker, this isn’t super useful for you on this particular project, perhaps the dyeing is the way forward. I did do a small scale white on black job a couple of months ago for a friend. I was faced with a similar problem, and realised I could add resin, carve resin, add another colour resin, then sand down (I didn’t dare thickness, I made a mess of the job several times and didn’t want to screw it up again).
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I don’t know, but I think you are correct. I know there are ways to bleach or pickle oak, I just don’t know what’s used.
There are products specifically intended for bleaching wood, I’ve tried them in the past with little result. Pickling’s usually done on oak with a very diluted thin ‘wash’ of the desired color.
To throw options on the pile have you tried or considered melamine faced materials(think of ikea shelves)? I’ve cut some and it cuts well with very crisp edges.
I’m curious, approximately how thick is the melamine and what is the core material?
I think this can vary between sources but it’s probably about 1mm thick, the stuff under that I’ve seen is just mdf. Here’s a quick look.
Pretty crisp right!
I also know at least for me locally I can get 5x5 sheets of just melamine to laminate with and that’s probably a few mm’s thick but $100 a sheet so…
Very Nice! Always nice to have another source of material. I think HD and Lowes both sell melamine coated shelves. I wonder if you can get edge banding?
They do yes. I might expect that to be chip board/particle board however instead of mdf.
I was thinking something like an iron-on melamine ‘tape’ that can be found to match veneers on the edges of cut boards.
I know another option out there is HDPE https://www.interstateplastics.com/HDPE. That would be easier because it comes in multiple colors, then its just a carve, epoxy, surface and done. That takes all the challenge out of trying to solve this though.
But then its just a piece of plastic hanging on the wall, not an armature wood workers - too expensive for what it is, piece of hand crafted art.
There’s nothing time or money won’t solve right.
Is that the same material cutting boards are made from? And will epoxy /paint adhere to it?
I always liked the Warren Zevon song Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money, gotta figure if any combination of the three doesn’t solve your problem, you’re in deep guano. 
Yes and I have no clue. I’ll see if I can convince the wife to let me borrow a cutting board.
In all seriousness, if anyone has one local, restaurant supply stores are usually open to the public and have great prices on such things.
I actually think I have an old one in my camping gear somewhere. I’d think paint probably wouldn’t adhere so well, but epoxy…
Google tells me nothing sticks to polyethylene - so scrap that idea.
In one of my previous lives I worked as a tech in a vinyl flooring lab, we used to dissolve PE in xylol and coat vinyl pellets with it, let them dry, and extrude them, the PE acted as a lubricant. I wonder if pigment dissolved in xylol would work as a colorant? PE’s availability and ease of cutting makes it tempting.
If nothing sticks to Teflon, how do they get Teflon to stick to the pan?!
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Mystical Incantation!
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