# Aging Wood



## Night Watchman

I built a fence for my graveyard. The thing was the fence looked new, because of the fresh wood. I didn't want to paint it but i didn't want it to look like it was new. What I did was put steel wool into white vinegar and let it sit for about 24-26 hours. The steel wool rusted in the vinegar. I painted the solution onto the fence and sat it in the sun for a couple of days. Actually it is still there. The wood looks older. Since sitting in the sun it now looks like I got the wood from old skids that bricks and things like that are delivered on. It looks alot better for a graveyard than brand new wood. The vinegar (4 litre jug) and steel wool cost me $3. I thought it was worth it. If you search wood aging it will show the technique.
An update for anyone interested in this I left my fence out for a week. It darkened and blended into a 4 year old fence I had it leaning against. Anyone who has a pressure treated wood fence it turns as dark as that but it did not go as silver, stayed more gray/black/dirty. I was happy with the outcome.


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## Indyandy

Do you have any pictures?


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## Night Watchman

Actually I was checking the fence today and thinking I need to post pictures. The before ones are in an album on my page. I will try to get something up in the next few days.


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## jaege

I am curious, that method, the steel wool and viniger, does it leave an odor?


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## Night Watchman

I left my fence out for a week now, thought it might help the aging. I am hard pressed to smell vinegar on it. The bucket I used (plastic pail) has no smell. The only thing I could smell vinegar on is was the paint brush. The one thing I should say is use an old brush. Mine rusted up. The nails on the fence rusted also, but that adds to the effect.


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## Otaku

This is a pic of tea/iron acetate aging on a new pine board. I got a nice silvery finish that compared well with some naturally aged boards. There's no noticable vinegar smell. The strength of the tea seemed to be the major player in the aging.


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## Night Watchman

The fence behind my fence is 4 years old. I put a fresh piece of spruce 2x4 in front of my fence to show the before wood. I left the fence out in the sun for a week.










Same piece before I aged it.


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## Spooky1

I found a neat link for "Homemade and Alternative Stains and Colorant" online.

http://www.woodworking.org/WC/Garchive01/3_27colorants.html


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## Indyandy

What about treated lumber? Can you still stain the wood for an aged look? I would like to age my coffin. I made it out of fence pickets.


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## Otaku

Are you talking about pressure-treated wood? That stuff has some nasty, and quite toxic, compounds injected into it. You should use gloves when handling it.

Since the tea/iron acetate aging is a chemical reaction that really only affects the surface of the wood, I imagine it would work on virtually any wood. It's a result of combining iron acetate with tannic acid. It even turned my sponges dark grey/brown when I applied the acetate. Try it on a small corner and see what color you get.


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## Night Watchman

The one thing about pressure treated wood is it is treated to prevent aging. Having said that the fence behind my fence in the picture is pressure treated and it does age. I think I would do as Otaku said and try it on a scrape piece first. The only problem is if you use my method you have to leave the steel wool in the vinegar for a long duration. I left it soak over 24 hours. On the bright side if it does not work you only wasted about $3. If I had to guess I would think you would get more of a silver finish.


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## SeaHoCaptain

I did a very similiar aging to my coffin. But first I sprayed it with oven cleaner that contained lye. Let that sit over night. Then I took the vinegar steel wool mix and diluted it 50% with water and put in a hand sprayer. At first it didnt appear to do anything, I was actually disappointed. But there is some reaction that slowly creeps in and really aged/darkened the wood up nicely in about 2 hours. It wasn't as grey (Its more dark brown) as I might have liked but the result is definintely aged nicely. 

David


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## Indyandy

Do you have any pictures?


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## SeaHoCaptain

I'll take some tonight...:jol:

David


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## SeaHoCaptain

Here are the pics I promised...









Just the coffin









close up of the coffin, the crosses are untreated to show the difference.









Backing out a little.

The light splashes on the coffin where some other attempts with acid to age. The acid dripped on the coffin prior to this attempt and stained it. Actually adds some character.
David


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## TNBrad

I work for the DIY Network and there is a show we run called "YARD CRASHERS".
In one episode they aged a wooden fence in just a few hours by using a pump garden sprayer with a mixture of warm water and baking soda. Over a few applications they got the aged / gray / weathered look they wanted.


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## jimf

TNBrad: I did see that show, thanks for jogging my memory. My wife and I are DIY Network fans. Thanks again .


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## SpectreTTM

Otaku said:


> This is a pic of tea/iron acetate aging on a new pine board. I got a nice silvery finish that compared well with some naturally aged boards. There's no noticable vinegar smell. The strength of the tea seemed to be the major player in the aging.


Where would one acquire Iron Acetate?


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## Otaku

SpectreTTM said:


> Where would one acquire Iron Acetate?


You can make it yourself. Dilute white vinegar 50/50 with water to make about a pint. Take a small wad of steel wool and put it in the container. I used a 20 oz. Vitamin Water bottle. The reaction generates some gas so be careful when you open the bottle. After a couple days you'll see the fluid start to get some brownish-orange color. It's ready to use. Wipe your wood with strong tea, let it dry, then wipe with the iron acetate. You'll a color change almost immediately.


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## Night Watchman

When I made my solution I didn't bother with diluting the vinegar. I poured 2 litres into a plastic bucket and submerged a piece of steel wool in it. I left the wool soak for about 26 hours. The one thing I did with my fence is I left it outside in the sun for about a week. It turned a dark brown. There are before and after pictures on the first page of this thread.


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## Rascal

I just finished my first fence, which is very similar to the one Nightwatchmen posted. 

I used a propane torch to lightly color all the wood and in random places slightly burn the wood. I then used a green stain and followed that up with a very light coating of brown stain applied with steel wool. 

Once it was all dry, I followed it up with another light burning. Imho, it came out pretty good. 

I'll post up some pics later tonight.


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## skarson

This thread inspired me to make my own fence this year. I bought the pine pickets and 1x2's for the rails at Home Depot. I then took a wood file to each and every picket, to rough it up and round off all of the sharp factory edges. I then tried to age the pine with a solution of water and baking soda, while it did darken it slightly, it wasn't what I was looking for. I then tea stained the wood, and the brushed on the Iron Acetate that I made with Vinegar and steel wool. I didn't get the graying effect that I was looking for ( maybe the baking soda worked against the iron acetate, but I don't really know) , but I did get the fence to look like old wood. I will store it outside, under my deck, so it should look even better next year. I'm lucky in the sense that my yard is so small, I didn't have to make that much of it, which was good, because roughing up every board took a lot more time than I thought it would have.

Here are some thumbnail pics, click on them for more detail.


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## Longtimer

Another way of extreme aging is using a hand propane blow torch and a wire brush. Obviously, this would be time consuming and probably costly for an entire fence, but you could hit the fence in serveral places and really make it look old.

FWIW


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