oak flooring and that aged look

[RogerS]

SWMBO has her heart set on this. By the 'aged look' I'm referring to the silvery grey sheen that's present in the internal and very old, untreated, unwaxed, unvarnished, untouched original beams.

Is there anyway I can cheat and 'win' 300 years worth of natural ageing but using new oak?

 

[Jake]

There's an old recipe I found mention of somewhere on the web, soaking galvanised nails in white vinegar to (I guess) effectively make a zinc stain.

I tried it and it didn't work, but I may have not used enough nails or left it long enough or something. I meant to try to find powdered zinc somewhere to speed it up and get greater concentration, but haven't got around to it.

The Tate Modern's floor is a little bit silvered - that's raw untreated band-sawn oak, I think.

 

[JFC]

Give the new oak to me and i will leave it on one of the sites i fit my work on . The people there can make new wood look like it's 300 years old in 1 day !

 

[misterfish]

I remember seeing Norm and Tommy using a commercial ageing solution to turn shingles grey on an episode of This Old House I saw some time ago. I did manage to find it on the web after the show as SWMBO and I thought it could be useful for some of our planned projects. I never managed to find a UK importer/distributor/manufacturer.

Try Googling for 'weathering stain' - it seems to be the description used.

MisterFish

 

[White House Workshop]

How about salt water? We have family on Nantucket and the houses there are all clad naturally (local law) and they all go silver within a year due to the salt water spray. Nantucket is a very windy place!

 

[RogerS]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. Will investigate further.

More ideas very welcome !

 

[superunknown]

They are a couple of ways that I have used in the past, neither are much fun!

Fuming the oak with Ammonia or using Caustic (and an Acetic acid to neutralise the Caustic).

 

[DomValente]

As Nola said Caustic.
Bucket of water, add the caustic well dissolved brush on ( if you want to open the grain use a wire brush) leave for an hour or saw then jet wash off thoroughly.
Leave to dry, again thoroughly, and wax. Bootiful

Oh, do all of this before you lay the floor.

Dom

 

[orangetlh]

I knew i read about this sumwhere on here,

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7808

 

[ivan]

Ammonia will give you brown. The vinegar method requires iron, not zinc, so galvanised nails are no good at all.

Dissolve some steel in white vinegar - steel wool dissolves fast (may need degrasing in hot detergent first) and rusty nails take a few days. Used neat will stain oak very strong blue/black. Diluted will give a weathered oak grey. Don't seal teh bottle whist dissolving as some gas is given off, pressure build up can crack the glass. You can also use ferrous sulphate from your local lab chemicals supplier

 

[Jake]

The vinegar method requires iron, not zinc, so galvanised nails are no good at all.

This definitely wasn't the old iron/tannin trick, it was zinc-based. But there's nothing to say that they hadn't got it wrong.

Here you go, 'pickling' http://www.alsnetbiz.com/homeimprovement/pickling.html