Ageing and Darkening of Wood by Fuming
I think this is the forum where this belongs.
I want to age and darken some wood to be used in a drawer I am going to make for a friend. This drawer is to replace one missing from an antique he bought.
We do not know what kind of wood was used in the original drawers. But, it appears to me to be some type of clear pine. I am not sure what kind of wood I am planning to use, but it looks like poplar or sycamore.
I have no experience in the process of fuming. But, I thought I would use household ammonia. This is based on my limited knowledge from reading about fuming.
I need advice and suggestions from those of you who have done this. How do you construct the “tent” used in fuming? Any ideas as to time required in fuming? Is household ammonia effective in doing this? Does fuming result in shrinkage or warping? Educate me on this subject, please.
Billy B.
Edited 3/8/2007 10:28 pm ET by Billy B.
Replies
Billy,
As I understand this you are trying to repair or replace a drawer to match an old piece. I think you are going about this the wrong way. There are much easier ways to match the old piece. Fuming is dangerous if you don't know what you are doing for one thing. Household ammonia isn't nearly strong enough and the industrial ammonia that is strong enough can permanantly damage your throat, lungs, etc. if you breathe it in.
I suggest you post this in the finishing section of knots. There you will get a ton of help. Post all the details you can including pictures. And if you do decide to fume it make sure you always have a fan blowing and STAY UPWIND OF THE AMMONIA.
Rob
Fuming is usually done with oak-- esp. white oak. IIRC the fuming with ammonia works with oak because it has tannic acid in the fiber.
Fuming would work with any such wood (with tannic acid), but I am pretty sure pine does not.
Household ammonia is largely useless; most who fume do so with a 26% solution that is available from a chemical supply house. And yes, it is very dangerous, and should be done outside. Generally, it is done by making a frame somewhat larger than the project in question, and then covering the frame with plastic.
Instead you might try aniline dye stains, which are good for something like this, since you can keep overlaying one stain on top of another until you get the color right.
********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Fuming won't work on pine as others have said-- unless you first wipe down the pine with tannic acid. If you were fuming one of the woods that does react to ammonia, e.g., a white oak, walnut, mahogany etc., then household ammonia does work, but only very slowly. The industrial stuff is what's normally used, and it is rather dangerous.
A simple way to darken woods that don't react to ammonia (as in your case) is to use dyes as Nikkiwood suggested. If you don't have any dye handy you can do other things to colour wood. For example, brew up some tea-- real hot tea, not the window sill brewed item popular in America. Let it stew for a while, pour yourself a mug full, enjoy it, and use what's left over to wipe over the wood. You can do similar with coffee too, and various food dyes. Slainte.
Richard Jones Furniture
Edited 3/9/2007 4:02 am by SgianDubh
Thanks, people. Looks like I had a "harebrained idea". My friend is coming by today, so we will discuss an alternative method.
I really appreciate your replies. You saved me a lot of time and effort just setting up to try the fuming.
Best wishes to your all.
Billy B.
Billy B,
Let me toss my 2 cents in. The ammonia that you need can be found at a store selling blueprint supplies. It's solution is somewhere between 24 to 28% aqueous ammonia, you should wear eye goggles, respirator with cartridges made for ammonia use, face shield and above all a long sleeve shirt and rubber gloves. This type of ammonia is really nasty. If you plan to do this it will only work on wood that has tannic acid in it's makeup, as previously stated, and even if you had all white oak in a project, unless it's ALL from the same tree it will take the ammonia fuming differently. On top of all that you need to built some kind of tent to keep the fumes from escaping which can be made from 1 x 2's and covered with plastic. I have looked into doing this process and from what I have learned you can get the great results from dying and staining the wood.
Greg
All you need for fuming Greg (in terms of an enclosed space) is anything that prevents rapid exchange of air. So, as you rightly say, you can build a tent using wood and plastic sheeting.
For a large item that is to be fumed you can also rent an enclosed trailer or panel van. If you own either of these that saves the hire cost. Small items can be placed in plastic food containers. Larger pieces in plastic storage boxes. Very large items can even go in a room with all the windows and doors closed, although what that might do to any woodwork built into the room has to be assessed.
I'm simply offering up other possibilites. One of the things I find interesting about online threads on fuming is that they nearly always bring up the mantra that objects to be fumed must be fumed in a purpose made tent. This just isn't true.
You're right to note that the effect of fuming of planks from one tree to the next plank from a different tree of the same species can give different results.
Fuming reactive species does give a particular look, and most people today do prefer to go with the dye and stain techniques as you suggest. These dying and staining techniques, along with the subsequent polishing, can give a satisfactory representation of the fumed look, but it does need a bit of practice. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
I had once read that Stickley even had problems with this type of finishing as the wood from different trees would take on different shades during the fuming process. It is too bad that the book I was reading did not go into specifics on how to correct the problems. After some more research they said that he used asphaltum mixed to varying degrees with some kind of oil to get an even color. I have seen some Stickly originals and I am in amazement how even the finish is.
Greg
Edited 3/9/2007 2:32 pm ET by GW52
Asphaltum is basically bitumen- the heaviest component of crude oil. I know the stuff as tar, which is the rather inaccurate British english parlance.
Basically what the Stickleys' did was thin the bitumen with solvents and slosh the resultant slop around on their fumed oak furniture. It ended up lodging in the open pores and colouring the grain somewhat, and tended to even out the uneven colour derived via fuming.
Essentially all it did (does) is obscure the background fumed colour by imparting its own uniforming blackness to the whole.
Slop a bit of boiled linseed oil and some beeswax over the top, or a bit of spirit varnish, and that's the job done. Quite neat and clever. The bitumen technique sits within a whole raft of similar techniques using naturally derived colourants such as tea, coffee and various natural dyes derived from plants and other sources, and even things like red brick dust! Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Some may recognize "Gilsonite" as a Sherwin Williams wiping stain (both solvent and water-based) used primarily for enhancing grain definition, particularly with Oak or other ring porous woods. Gilsonite is another name for Asphaltum.
Do you happen to know if fuming with ammonia was a technique much used before Stickley's time?********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
nikkiwood, I can't be sure when fuming with ammonia got going as a technique. Prior to about 1850 or 1880 I'm not sure where concentrated liquid ammonia might have been produced. The question is, I suppose, how able was a chemicals industry at that time and before to produce it? I don'r know the answer to that and perhaps a chemist will see this thread and be able to offer some informed comment.
On the other hand, perhaps inaccurately and unhelpfully, there's something nagging at the back of my brain concerning the placing of bare oak furniture in pig styes, cow byres and horse stables that naturally would result in the staining process occurring. Perhaps someone accidentally came across the darkening effect after storing some oak furniture in one of those places and the fuming thing developed from there.
That's all I can think of right now, even though it may be way off target-- it's just, as I say, something niggling away at the back of my mind. I suppose some proper research would be in order, but I'm afraid I've too many other things to do to get very excited about it, ha, ha. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Richard,
I guess you are right nearly correct in your supposition about the manure "fuming" being the early source of someone noticing the darkening effect of ammonia. Or it might have been Queen Elizabeth's corgi cocking its leg on the old gal's dower chest..."Now how are we going to get the rest to match that dark brown bit all down the corner?"
Cheers,
Ray
Ray
Ray, the only problem I can see with your Queen Lillibet and the royal wee of the corgi theory is that she (the Queen) is only about eighty years old. This would put her birth sometime around 1926 or '27. The Arts and Crafts mob were fuming oak in the late 1800's and early 1900's.
On the other hand if you were referring to Queen Elizabeth the First, she lived in the mid and latter 1500's and just into the 1600's. I'm not sure if she had a fondness for corgis, or even if they were a breed recognised by the forerunners of Crufts then.
Anyway, it's an interesting theory, ha, ha. Slainte. Richard Jones Furniture
Richard,
Yah, I was thinking of the original Lizzie, and speculatin on her ownership of a corgi, or that the breed even existed back then. I'm sure Bette Davis had some kind of pooch on her lap in those old movies I saw as a kid, tho...That's the extent of my in-depth research, ha, ha
Ray, laying in a supply of Harp, Jameson's, and Irish Mist, in anticipation of seein' one of the little people in a few short days...
We don't want too much in depth research on this ammonia thing Ray.
In depth contemplation maybe, with the help of all that booze you're stockpiling, might be the best approach. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Ah, Richard,
Don'tcha know, lad, with all that Harp, and Guinness (I'm a black-and -tan man mesel') goin' in, it canna stay there. We don't buy beer, after all, just rent it. Might's well paint an oak post out back o' the shop som'eres, in depth, and test your theory.
Really though, I only drink to steady my hands. Sometimes, I get so steady, I don't move at all for a day or so.
Faith an begorrah, I do believe I hear the dulcet call of the Irish Mist. Gotta go.
Ray
I read your reply, and it got me to thinking, so I whipped out my google and came up with this:http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2001/prime/According to this info, ammonia was first prepared in 1774, but it wasn't until 1909 (half way thru Stickley's manufacturing career) that one Fritz Haber found a way to make it in commercial quantities (for which he won a Nobel prize).The anonymous poster of this info provided an email address (at the University of Bristol), so I asked him if ammonia was commonly available to people like Stickley for such mundane tasks as fuming furniture. We'll see if he responds..........Now I'm wondering if Stickley dreamed up this idea himself, or if it was general knowledge that ammonia coud be used to color wood. File this under useless esoterica...............********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
nikkiwood, I'll be interested to see if he replies. However, it's possible one of our contributors is a chemist, will spot this thread, and post some useful information. I know I mentioned the same thing earlier. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
My email to the prof was bounced back, so I guess he probably got tired of fielding dumb questions. I guess I can live without that info, and I'm sure you can too <G>.********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Was it a prof nikkiwood, or a student. If the latter I suspect the student account has been closed, hence the bounce back.
Anyway, I was thinking about cow sheds, cow pee/crap and darkening of oak. It occurs to me after a bit of thought that it is likely someone noticed the oak beams, door frames and doors of the byre darkened in these places and put two and two together.
In other words it seems to me less likely that someone stashed a bit of oak furniture in such a place to work out that oak darkened in the presence of dung and pee, which was the idea I suggested earlier in this thread. Just a thought. Slainte.
Richard Jones Furniture
Edited 3/12/2007 4:07 pm by SgianDubh
There was no date or source on the link; I intuited Bristol because that was in the email address.I think you're probably right that it was a grad student who put up this little piece of trivia 10 years ago, and now Google has picked it up and it will live forever in cyberspace. The internet is both wierd and wonderful.I think you're also right about the animal barn thing. But I am also guessing that there was a way to concoct ammonia in appreciable, if not commercial quantities when Gustav started to use it. I would also surmise he wasn't the first to figure this out. ********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Richard,
I too have read about the oak timbers being darker in the barns from all of the droppings from the cows, horses and anything else the farmer had. Someone must have put 2 and 2 together and since some barns smell like ammonia if they are not cleaned out, go figure.
Greg
I've done repairs now on about a dozen old oak furniture pieces, making new replacements to match broken or missing parts. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks so, but I've used household ammonia successfully (with or without the sudsy detergent and lemony scent). Maybe it takes more quantity to deal with a large pieces of work, but the vapor pressure for ammonia being the same regardless of concentration, household ammonia should get you there without a trip to buy some that will cost more than the piece of wood you're fuming, is that's all you're doing. Heck, I'll admit I've even applied it directly to the wood when I was in a hurry.
Fully prepared for bashing.
I've only played around with it, but my experience is the same. I thought regular household ammonia worked just fine. Or at least whatever difference in speed of darkening there might be didn't seem worth the trouble to me.
<shrugs>
>> ... but I've used household ammonia successfully ...My experience matches yours and Kevin's. Ordinary household ammonia gave my oak pretty dark color and plenty of penetration with overnight exposure. Of course, I was using an airtight container, not a tent ...
As a note: technical ammonia is sold on line by Olde Mill Cabinet Shoppe which also sells a wide variety of traditional chemical dyes and pigments.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled