I am thinking of making a coffee table for a friends new home by the coast. Their theme coloring is sort of driftwood gray. What wood should I be thinking of using and how would I achieve the mixed streaky gray/white look of driftwood? Thanks
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Never used it but at least a couple of the stain makers have a driftwood colored stain. Varathane I think is one.
Thank you
What you describe is not truly a driftwood finish, I've never seen driftwood with white paint on it. What you want to achieve is more of a worn and aged whitewashed finish, such as can be found on old barns and fences. This will require a 3 step process, graying the wood, applying a white wash, then a matte clear coat.
I can tell you from experience it can be quite difficult to achieve just the right shade of gray. I recently built and finished nursery furniture for my granddaughter and my daughter wanted it in a weathered gray finish and I will say it was the trickiest finish I've ever dealt with. While I feel my problems stemmed from a few things that I could have controlled better, it proved very challenging. So I will pass on a few things I learned.
I think I tried more than a dozen commercial products in addition to mixing my own dyes and custom color blends of stains. The products I was most impressed with were from company called Weather Wash. They make various blends of chemicals that will provide different types of aging to the wood by reacting with the woods natural tannins. They also offer a sample kit of their various blends so you can try them to see which works best for you. Velspar makes a single shade product that is similar but the label warns you to use their clear finish product or the results my vary and they did, my test board was perfect until I sprayed it with my standby clear finish from GF and it turned purple, so the lesson is sometimes we need to follow the directions. The thing I liked about the chemical treatments versus stains was the very natural aged appearance they provide versus stains which tended to look more like gray painted wood.
Wood selection is critical with the chemical aging products, and where I made my biggest mistakes. I had used maple but it had been sourced from multiple sources and I would find a product that looked great on some boards but totally different on others, some had a beautiful shade of gray while others were purple or green all from the same product. So source your wood from the same place at the same time. A high tannin wood like oak is probably best. Plus if you opt for a stain versus a chemical ager oak grain may be more visible versus maple which looked painted.
Don't over sand, most of the finishes recommend sanding to only 80-100 grit, again you want that aged look. The problem is at 80 grit RO sanders will leave swirl marks more of a problem with pigmented stains than chemical agers but hand sanding is in order, linear and with the grain.
After you manage to get the gray right then apply the whitewash, General Finishes makes one that I have used in the past. This process is much more artistic than normal finishing where you try to get an even coat applied all over. Here you will want to vary the application heavier in some areas almost non existent in others using a combination of brushing and ragging and wiping to get the desired results. It helps to have a picture of the results you are trying to achieve to refer to. I recommend proceeding lightly at first you can always come back and apply a second coat.
After that it simply a matter of applying the clear finish of your choice usually Matte to keep with the aged look but that is up to you.
I will strongly urge you to make several practice boards before touching you actual work piece.
Your experience and suggestions are most welcome. It would seem that some practice is in order
I urge you to give the Weather Wash products a try they are incredibly easy to use and gave great results in developing a nice gray aged look. My only problem with them was my odd mixture of wood sources which stemmed from my son being involved in the project and building some of it with wood he sourced locally which apparently was a different species of maple than mine and reacted quite differently to the same chemical mixture. One note about the chemical agers they do not offer a lot of control, you simply saturate the surface and wait to see how they react with the tannins in the wood. Most won't change with heavier coats or lighter coats and second coats had little effect. With maple there was none of the splotchiness often associated with staining maple allowing the grain of maple to shine through, unlike the stains I tried that tended to come out looking like gray paint.
As mentioned, the look depends a lot on what wood species you use. Google, Steel wool and vinegar, you’ll find a lot of videos for the simple effective technique. Pine and poplar give the lightest gray look in my experience.
Thank you- I will look that up
+1 on practicing first. Alternating layers of paint and judicious sanding can get you an "aged look" if you're looking for a painted surface. Building the table for outdoor use and then leaving it outdoors will get you to a true weathered look that you could then clean up for indoor use if you really want to see the wood.
I've never seen a stain that can simulate driftwood, but the interior decorator's version can be had in a can. I'd pick a heavy-grained wood to give the stain places to vary in intensity.
Thank you!
I have used stains from these guys on an oak table top. Two step process, but easy and works well.
https://www.weatherwoodstains.com/light-oaking-reactive-stain.html
Have you considered using driftwood?
I am just in the final stages of a cabinet that was requested to have a gray driftwood effect, so I am with you. I chose to physically “weather” the wood by wire brushing. A species with a hardness contrast between early wood and late wood provides the most pronounced effect. I chose Douglas fir, and I know that cypress and some others are suitable. One of my boards had gorgeous tight grain and it turned out to be too tight because the ridges that were left after brushing are very thin and brittle. But on boards with wider-spaced rings the effect is cool. My coloring process was based on working with conventional oil-based stains and honestly if I were to start over I would do something else. It looks OK, but it’s been a slow and fussy process.
I wasn't kidding about using driftwood to build a coffee table. Driftwood is a piece of wood that has been rolling around in a salt bath for a long time. Years maybe.. All or most of the tannins have been leached out. The sun has bleached it and finally it gets a nice grinding of beach sand. Plenty around here.... I can see myself spending a day or days even hunting down the right pieces to mill into a coffee table, but then I only have to go about 1500' to do that. Different story if you have to go 1500 miles! So if you have no source for actual driftwood I would start with a wood like birch or aspen, woods that are low in tannins. People boil wood to remove tannins, never tried it myself but if I were to do it I'd make a big shallow pan put the boards in for a little while into boiling water, dump the water then do it again and again until no more or very little dark water appears. Hopefully I haven't compromised the lumber beyond useful.. This might be the one situation where oxalic acid might actually accomplish something,I hate the stuff, but it might actually get the wood white. Those chemicals that grey wood make something that approximates weathered wood. I've tried them. The will eventually cause the wood to take a grey tone. Weathered wood is what I have for fence boards. Driftwood is a whole different thing.
It might be worth checking out Rubio Monocoat.
https://www.rubiomonocoatusa.com
This is something I want to try and I've heard good things about it. They offer a good variety of colors and some sample pictures of it applied to various wood species. I have some part A color samples I want to try out myself. (I have no association with this company).
How about making it out of ambrosia maple, some pieces are greyish just like driftwood with darker streaks.
+1 on the Rubio Mono coat or if you can get it Loba HS 2K oil. I've used the Loba for custom treads , shelves , mantles ,etc .. to match pre finished floors.
You can do multi coats over water base or oil stains.
Rubio is the same hard wax oil base that you can add your color to the Loba is colored.
Rubio also offers all the products you could need to achieve an aged multi layered finish.
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