What is the best way to achieve an open grain finish on a pine board

[Gerryattrick]

My wife wants a chest finished with an open grain (not sure if I even have the terminology right). Its pine and she wants it to look aged - sort of like an old weatherboard would appear after years of aging. The idea is to lightly wash it with a white finish (lime?), rubbed off and just leaving a small residue in the surface irregularities. The idea being to make it appear that the chest is an old one that has been painted and most of the old paint has weathered off.

Can anyone tell me how I would achieve that finish from a pine board that has been sanded smooth.

I know it sort of seems I am working backwards trying to make a finished item look unfinished..but that's what she wants

[mark david]

Hi Gerry, because pine isn't an open grained timber,your best bet is to resort to either sandblasting or using a blowtorch to char the surface and then wire brushed the for an aged look then waxed for a natural look.

My wife wants a chest finished with an open grain (not sure if I even have the terminology right). Its pine and she wants it to look aged - sort of like an old weatherboard would appear after years of aging. The idea is to lightly wash it with a white finish (lime?), rubbed off and just leaving a small residue in the surface irregularities. The idea being to make it appear that the chest is an old one that has been painted and most of the old paint has weathered off.

Can anyone tell me how I would achieve that finish from a pine board that has been sanded smooth.

I know it sort of seems I am working backwards trying to make a finished item look unfinished..but that's what she wants

[Robson Valley]

I'd go for the sand blasting. The modern process here uses crushed walnut shell, not silica sand.*
Find a commercial shop that is cleaning and repainting machinery engines. Let them blast a scrap
but not too deep and not evenly.

Charred wood from torch work is really hard to totally clean off.

* The biggest machine companies here have learned that the silica will bind to the cast iron surface of engine blocks.
There's great suspicion that this makes the iron surface brittle and cracking is more common and, of course,
obscenely expensive.

[Xanthorrhoeas]

As mark david has said, pine is not open grained. In fact, pine and all other conifers do not have pores because, in botanical terms, they do not have vessels making up the wood, only tracheids. It is the vessels in flowering plants that create the pores in the wood as the openings/tubes in vessels are much larger than the openings/tubes in tracheids. OK, botanical lesson over.

I suggest that you ask your wife to describe very carefully what she is looking for before you do anything drastic. I have often found that my understanding of what my wife wants is very limited.

One suggestion for an aged looking finish could be Porters milk paint (made in Brisbane I believe) with possibly some distressing or just hard rubbed. Australian Wood Review run a video series and I remember seeing one that was filmed in Richard Vaughan's workshop "shedudio" here in Brisbane. An American woodworker was demonstrating her use of milk paint with different distressing techniques to produce artistic effects. Perhaps one of those effects may be what your wife wants and you could show her the video to check. I saw the objects themselves at Richard's and some of the rubbed back ones had a lovely glow to them. That look all over a piece of furniture would be great. She had also used the burning and wire-brush techniques but they create quite three-dimensional surfaces. Great for her sculptures but maybe not for furniture.

I have some milk paint to put on a piece of depression furniture that has lost most of its original milk paint, but haven't used it yet, so this suggestion does not have experience of use behind it, I'm afraid.

Good luck with it.

David

Edit for completeness

[_fly_]

Back in the 70's they used to make furniture from the charred oregon and then brush with a wire brush.
Is that the look she's after.
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/2c2xBtEpn7s/0.jpg

[Cliff Rogers]

Wire wheel on an angle grinder, follow the grain & practice on some scrap.

Then use Oxalic acid to bleach it.

When you are finished, it will look like a piece of old driftwood off the beach.

[Gerryattrick]

Maybe I can't use pine for what she wants given the issue of (lack of) grain. It is for a chunky rustic dining table and it has been a mission getting her to get the detailed requirements as it seems to me to be a mix of styles. However given that this is my excuse for a decent router etc I am not about to kill the goose that I hope will continue to lay golden eggs

This is the texture I am talking about and she wants to whitewash it and then remove most of the colour and just leave small residues in the grain. I think the picture is of cedar but that would be far too soft having experience of a table made from an old cedar door. I planned on using pine because this is my first attempt at anything this large and it is cheap to allow for mistakes.

Maybe I need to rethink the type of timber or make the table in Pine and if it works make another in a more suitable timber. Or have a bit more confidence in the finished product being OK

[Christos]

It looks like you want to have the grain stand out after applying a stain or dye. The thing that I see the stain needs to soak deeper into the grain.

So what you choose to stain needs to be thinned out so it will soak in. Personally I am not sure how pine will react to soaking up the stain. Might need to try this on a couple of test pieces.

[Bob38S]

It looks like you want to have the grain stand out after applying a stain or dye. The thing that I see the stain needs to soak deeper into the grain.

So what you choose to stain needs to be thinned out so it will soak in. Personally I am not sure how pine will react to soaking up the stain. Might need to try this on a couple of test pieces.

Biggest problem with pine and stain (especially spirit stain) is that it will go blotchy as it is absorbed at different rates as the surface changes, pigment stains (which are often recommended for pine) build up on the surface, hiding any grain and often appear to look muddy.

[Xanthorrhoeas]

Maybe I can't use pine for what she wants given the issue of (lack of) grain. It is for a chunky rustic dining table and it has been a mission getting her to get the detailed requirements as it seems to me to be a mix of styles. However given that this is my excuse for a decent router etc I am not about to kill the goose that I hope will continue to lay golden eggs

This is the texture I am talking about and she wants to whitewash it and then remove most of the colour and just leave small residues in the grain. I think the picture is of cedar but that would be far too soft having experience of a table made from an old cedar door. I planned on using pine because this is my first attempt at anything this large and it is cheap to allow for mistakes.

Maybe I need to rethink the type of timber or make the table in Pine and if it works make another in a more suitable timber. Or have a bit more confidence in the finished product being OK

We may be talking at cross purposes here. If you are describing the figure/pattern in the photo you posted as "open grain" it is not what I and other woodworkers call grain. Conifers (incl. pines) have two different densities of wood in their timber. The tree grows strongly in warmer, wetter, good growing conditions and lays down soft wood called "early-wood" then, as the growing season comes to a close the growth slows down and much harder, denser wood is laid down by the tree. Naturally, it is called late-wood. There are some competing terms out there but they are for the same phenomenon. if you choose a pine with strong figure from early wood/late wood patterning you can certainly show and exaggerate the figure with a pigment based finish rubbed back afterwards as the early wood and late wood absorb the finish differently and respond differently to being abraded.

As many others here have counselled - just get some scrap pieces of the timber of your choice and have a practice. I hope that you have success to help with your toy collection! BTW I have seen some tables made out of recycled Oregon timber beams - it would probably respond well to the treatment.

Regards

David