Matching oak skirtings/architraves

[LancsRick]

The joys of natural materials and their variations!

Here's a question for you. Architraves and skirting in a room, both European Oak from same timber yard, both finished with oil. Significant difference in colour. What would you do to get a better match? Sand back and use tinted oil? Remachine skirting in a better match? Do nothing and see if it darkens to similar shade over time?

Just machined up and dry fit all the skirts for the kitchen and it's fair to say they're very different to the architraves in places. Don't want to repeat several hours work if I don't have to and consign this wood to the offcuts bucket, but I want to get it right.

 

[baldkev]

Photos might help?

Personally I'd be reluctant to ditch it unless the difference is very stark. Might be worth getting some osmo whitening oil and doing some testers on the darker stuff. Ie. 1 coat on the architraves and 2 or 3 coats on the skirts. It may or may not work out.

 

[LancsRick]

Here you go @baldkev

 

[Inspector]

Difference might be due to wood coming from different regions/sources, some might be sapwood or even different species. Get some oil that is tinted darker or tint it yourself to brown it up. Play with some scrap offcuts from the different boards. Or embrace the differences.

Pete

 

[baldkev]

Are the pieces generally architraves darker, skirts lighter? Or a mixture?
Ive fitted lots of oak veneered doors and they often have light and dark veneers mixed up ( howdens ) and it 'works'
if you really hate it, theres always dulux ( just kidding, i think I'd live with it for a while and see if you even think about it in 6 months time )

 

[LancsRick]

Architraves darker. I don't so much hate it as it doesn't feel right to me - if I was making a single object then I'd always try to match the wood.

 

[HOJ]

Scribing the skirting into the architrave must take some doing, not fitted or seen it that way round before, may be the skirting is American white Oak.

 

[LancsRick]

All definitely European.

Yea it's a faff but I love the effect . Architrave is a half round so it's not too bad on a router table. It's not a perfect fit but we'll within the tolerance for a dab of wax.

 

[thetyreman]

I'd go for some tinted wax on the lighter pieces, should be quite easy to get it to match the darker bits, or you could try some dye to darken it until it matches, might have to experiment though and thin it out. the light piece to me looks like sapwood and not heartwood...