Aging timber with vinegar and steel wool

[qwertyu]

A friend of mine wants a dining table and she specifically wants silver timber. I saw online that people use vinegar and steel wool to age it. But what do you do after you apply it? Wouldn't it smell like vinegar and be sticky?

[joe greiner]

The vinegar and steel wool treatment is typically used for ebonizing. I'm not familiar with the methods.

If you want silver, an appropriate product might be "Rub-n-Buf." It's a very soft wax with metallic powder, available in small tubes. Using it on an entire dining table could get expensive, though. Better to use it for accents.

Cheers,
Joe

[Euge]

A friend of mine wants a dining table and she specifically wants silver timber. I saw online that people use vinegar and steel wool to age it. But what do you do after you apply it? Wouldn't it smell like vinegar and be sticky?

As Joe says, steel wool and vinegar (ie a solution of an iron salt) is used for ebonising (darkening / blackening) the surface of tannin rich woods eg real oaks, many eucalypt woods.

For silver-grey appearance I think bleaching may work (eg with ammonia and hydrogen peroxide), or maybe liming (rubbing lime into wood grain before coating). May be worth experimenting on offcuts and see what effect is preferred.

Euge

[AngelaPetruzzi]

If you have not yet found a solution, may I suggest, the Livos Kunos natural oil sealer comes in various stains. Not grey however one can use the white with an amount of the smoked oak (black) to achieve the grey of choice. The end result would be dependant on the timber as being a penetrating oil, the substrate would dictate the outcome somewhat. Also the products are certified food safe.

[hurcorh]

Livos, Rubio and Osmo all have 'silver' or grey oils that would do the trick.

[ubeaut]

Steel wool and vinegar brew is a modern version of what used to be called Liquid Nightmare.

From A Polishers Handbook

LIQUID NIGHTMARE (rusty nail brew) - is a concoction made by letting old nails and bits of steel etc. soak in vinegar for a period of time. This will produce a positive black when used in conjunction with Logwood extract, and when properly cut will provide all shades of grey.

Basic recipe.... Half fill a large jar or earthenware pot with old nails and bits of metal. Cover this with a mixture of 50% vinegar and 50% water and leave loosely covered for a couple of weeks. Strain and bottle.

There are a number of video's and recipes on Youtube all are made in a similar way and all will work.

Just one of the many chemical dyes that can be used on timbers. It's mostly used to ebonize timbers that have a high tannin content like oak and mahogany. Many timbers have a high tanin content so you will need to use something like pine which has a low tannin content.

When used on pine it will give a silvery grey look weathered look. You will need to weaken the solution with water and experiment with different dilutions on some scrap to get the right mix for the colour you want. You will have to be patient and wait a while as the dye takes time to react with the timber. It may also be darkened by the addition of a finish.

Finish over the top with your choice of surface coating. Polyurethane, white shellac, lacquer, etc. Ideally don't use an oil.

Hope this is of some help to you.

Cheers - Neil

[Robson Valley]

I've been doing iron acetate staining of various parts of some of my wood carvings.
The vinegar smell evaporates in a couple of days = all gone.

One pad of fine steel wool in 750ml table vinegar. Takes a couple of weeks to dissolve.
Paint it on. The iron acetate reacts with the wood tannins. Lots of tannin and you should see black.
All I ever got was a really dirty-looking medium gray that I did not like.

To fix that, you can prepaint the wood with very strong brewed tea as an extra tannin source.
Let that dry and then stain. I still got a dirty color I didn't like.
= = =
Another black comes from ammonia fuming, best done outdoors in a gentle breeze.
Soup plate of real ammonia bleach in a bin bag with the wood work for 48 hours.
= = =
None of this will give you anything remotely silver to look like sun-bleached weathered wood.
Leave the wood work outdoors to weather and sun bleach.
I made some picture frames like that. 2 years in the back yard was OK.
No added finish (really, who cares?) as that will destroy the silvery air-filled wood surface.
= = =

I'll guess that you will have to chemically bleach the wood to see silver that you can then finish with a protective coat.

[woodPixel]

Just a thought, is the grey of the timber an oxidation effect or some kind of Sun bleaching? Perhaps one can use some sort of artificial acceleration process....

An oxidation agent combo like lime, bleach, hydrogen peroxide....rub in dirt, flog it with a length of chain or a baseball bat with barbed wire wrapped around it (Lucille!) And hit it with UV lights, a HOT heat gun, soak it in water, pressure washer....etc, etc

Use some grey stain too.

[Robson Valley]

The grey of weathered timber is a bleaching of tannins and lignins, the polyphenolics in the wood cell walls.
Ultraviolet light can sun-burn wood, just like skin. Same damage.
Those destroyed molecules get washed out by the rain.
Added to that, the surface wood cells are really empty, just air filled.
The combination looks silvery.

Any finish that you can possibly imagine will fill those surface wood cells.
That destroys the refractive index and the silvery, prismatic effect is gone.

When I made picture frames, they weathered outdoors for a few years.
They all hang on my interior walls, beautifully grey silver.
They are completely unfinished. There is no reason to mess with them at all.

Be patient. Put the wood outside for a few years. Come back to it. All is well.

[hurcorh]

When I make the mixture I keep adding steel wool until it won't easily dissolve any more.

Pre treatments work well to enhance the level of oxidation. Here is three pieces of American White Oak. A good ebonising timber. One is just with the Iron acetate. The other two had a coat of experimental home made pre treatments. One obviously less useful than the other.
20180131_160021.jpg

[Cleokitty]

Joe Greiner, in Post #2, suggested Rub'n'Buff but as he notes, that would be very expensive for a tabletop.

I've looked longingly at the flakes of aluminium found in any machine shop or metal fabricators and wondered how I could use them. ( I love silver!)

Perhaps, instead of tiny tubes of the commercial product could you make your own using some sort of polishing wax and incorporating the very fine aluminium filings into it? That's if the client wants a gleam/glitter of silver, not merely an aged look? Worth an experiment? Let us know if you try it, please.

[woodPixel]

CleoKitty, could you use glitter?

Buy a huge sack of it from AliExpress, spray down some polyurethane to act as a sticky surface, then somehow blast them evenly over the surface (blown from a tube?). Let it dry, then two or 3 coats of Nitrocellulose, Polyurethane or the pour-on-glass stuff?

If you wanted machined particle or iron/aluminium/steel, perhaps contact Ewan here: https://www.facebook.com/84engineering He runs a commercial machine shop and regualrly generates a ton of scrap.

One can also buy metal powders in bulk, such as Aluminium Powder .... they also do gold, coppers and brights

edit: oooo... look at these, pastes! : We sell metal powders and can supply them anywhere in Australia and Asia Pacific - Australian Metal Powders Supplies - AMPS

edit 2: By Zeus Im thick! There are also metal powders for including in paints from car paint spraying companies. They make literally everything. I should have thought of this, because Ive been spraying today!!! E.g.

[Cleokitty]

Thanks woodPixel. As far as I know glitter isn't known for longevity. I don't have a particular use for metal filings at this time I've just eyed them off thinking that there must be something they could be used for. The reason the machine shop detritus appeals to me is because it's just lying there asking to be recycled and I thought qwertyu might be able to use it.

Thanks for the links. The aluminium powder looks interesting and far easier to have it delivered than climbing under machinery to retrieve it when I do have a use for it. (Somewhere I have a small bag of pearl flakes I'd bought for a painter to add to the paint to repaint my Bronco. He'd saved half of it for himself and I had to pry it out of him!)