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Treating Wood For Color, Etc?


Mickguard

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I was just speaking to a wood guy...he told me that there are various methods for provoking chemical and other reactions with different woods species to provoke color changes in the wood itself.

For example, when beech is heated, it turns a pinkish/red.

Another method he described is that one places clay in a pattern on the wood, then heats the surface--the part covered by clay will remain unchanged, but the wood around it will turn different colors.

And I suppose there are myriad chemicals or substances one can apply to wood to provoke color changes (or spots, etc) as well. Perhaps even certain substances that work to highlight the grain.

Does anyone have any experience with these ideas? Know any places to look for info?

Seems like it could be a very interesting alternative to staining.

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good morning. i did a quick google search and came up with this page of sites that seem to deal with what you're looking for. i didn't have time to read much but it looks pretty interesting.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=t...r+color+changes

definitely worth looking into later.

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  • 2 months later...

Huh...I knew someone had replied to this one, turned out to be unclej

I'm still looking for information on color changing wood using chemicals/substances for artistic purposes. The only information (including following unclej's link) I've been able to find discusses ways to protect wood, or the color changes that occur from certain treatments.

The wood I'm trying to work with is the maple cap on my guitar --so using liquids and even sustained heat are out. The ideal would be to find solid substances --types of salt or other solids--that will cause a reaction from the wood on contact. That will give me more control of the pattern.

I'm hoping for a reaction that will penetrate the surface (so I can still sand) but without causing depressions.

Maybe light? What type of light?

Any ideas?

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yeah mickgaurd...transmission fluid turns mahogany very red(but good luck finishing it),and dran-o really changes the color of alot of woods...including mahogany.

light?i think you are out of luck...uv naturally darkens alot of woods,but that just happens no matter what.

there is one substance which is well known to change the percieved color of wood and other substances on application....it is called paint...and i think you may be trying to get a bit foofy when the answer is really in the realm of the mundane :D

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If you leave wood to soak in methyline chloride stripper for a while the stripper starts to break down the wood fibers. Woods like mahogany and maple start to turn fuzzy in areas where the wood was softer. You can then lightly sand this and then stain the wood for some blotchy muddy looking crap. Sorry, that's all i know.

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.and i think you may be trying to get a bit foofy when the answer is really in the realm of the mundane :D

Foofy? Me? Tell me you've never had a feathered haircut :D

Anyway, the idea behind causing chemical reactions is that I would be able to control the pattern of the reaction --more like painting than painted, if you see what I mean.

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Hi. If you put rusty metal parts in vinegar and then leave it there for about 2 weeks then you have a nice black stain that works well with oak and other woods with high content that acid (tannin?? not really sure about the english word for it.), and also has a mild darkening effect on other woods as well.

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This would be better off asked over at the MIMF. If you're a member, you can reference their library of archived topics, and there is some material on what you're asking about there.

You're right, lots of fine information there. For this build I'm looking into ammonia-fuming or the vinegar/rust thing.

As I understand it, what I'm trying to provoke is a chemical reaction with the tannins in the wood. One (possibly naive) question that comes to mind is whether the wood grain has more or less tannin?

I'm still looking for a more controllable reaction --say, using a certain type of solid (salt, etc) that I can arrange in a pattern, subject to heat (from a hair dryer for example) to provoke the reaction.

I don't feel like posting at MIMF, though. I try to avoid getting involved in too many forums.

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Just try it, if you must.

Me, I'll stick with light-fast stains and the like if I have to change the looks. Also, for someone so focussed on non-toxic finish solutions, etc., looking for chemical staining/fuming methods just seems very, very silly to me. Some chemical treatments make finishing with Nitro look completely safe.

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Just try it, if you must.

Me, I'll stick with light-fast stains and the like if I have to change the looks. Also, for someone so focussed on non-toxic finish solutions, etc., looking for chemical staining/fuming methods just seems very, very silly to me. Some chemical treatments make finishing with Nitro look completely safe.

Well, the vinegar/rust thing has been around for a long time, so I'm not too worried there. And apparently it's very durable. The ammonia fuming is little different--definitely nasty stuff! I don't think I'll want to subject the guitar to that.

I'm not so focused on non-toxic though-- the tung oil I was trying didn't give me the results I wanted (although it'd be great for other projects). And now that I've found a source of nitro here in France, I'm going to try that out. I just received my cans today --funnily enough, they're labeled as 'natural lacquer'.

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I've done the vinegar and steel wool thing; results were too 'gray' for me, possibly because I let it stand too long, and it reduced to Fe+++ rather than ++ (only thing I can think of). It's the kind of look that might be OK for rustic furniture, but ain't great for guitars, IMO. If you just want to darken the grain on maple a little, instead of staining and sanding back, on a guitar that can take a blue/grey/blackish tinge, go for it.

All I know is that it made mahogany look pretty nasty. Not a great pic, but the only one I have:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~mvalente/guitarpics/...ar_r_back01.jpg

That got a dark, quasi-black purple/blueburst in the end, so it didn't matter, but I'll take a natural tint or good quality stain over this any day of the week.

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Well, I've since found out that the vinegar/rust/iron potion is called 'ebonizing' --so a nice tip for people looking for that.

As you say, the results vary a lot with the type of wood used.

You can adjust the intensity of the reaction by diluting the full strength concoction --and by adding several coats, you can get things pretty dark. Again, it depends on the wood. For example, I put some full-strength solution on a piece of kapla (building toy) and the wood turned black almost instantly. Maple's response is to become a slightly reddish grey. Alder turns pretty dark after a couple of coats--but remains rather blotchy and the grain loses its intensity.

Another issue, at least with the alder, is that apart from a blotchiness, the reaction appears to lift off in places --I painted some varnish onto a test piece, and in places it looks like the coloring got washed away.

Of course, end grain reacts more strongly than the rest of the piece, so something that needs to be taken into account.

Lastly, it doesn't respect a tape line --since the solution is highly liquid, it's able to seep under a line of tape. Since I'm trying to stain an alder back but keep the maple top as a faux binding, that just won't do --it's possible that I can protect the maple by sealing it first, but I'm not willing to risk that.

Still, it's an interesting effect, might turn out to be very useful for other projects --we've got a ton of kapla (two kids and an architect wife), for example, could be fun to make up a few colored batches...It might be helpful for people seeking to ebonize their fretboards too (don't know the effect it would have on ebony...worth a try?)

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