Replies

1. 
   JohnWW | Sep 21, 2004 05:47pm | #1

   Sandblasting will work on wood that has alternating bands of hard and soft wood, but the texture won't look like weathered wood, the contours will be soft.  Never heard of it being done with a pressure washer.

   On pine, and maybe on some hardwoods, you can scorch the wood with a propane torch and then wire brush it in the direction of the grain, but the color will be darkened considerably, you won't be able to make it look weathered gray.  If the wood is quite soft you could try just wire brushing it.

   Hope this helps, John W.

2. 
   forestgirl | Sep 21, 2004 07:39pm | #2

   I have heard, but not verified, that some of the less honorable antiques folk in England will "age" a piece of furniture by covering it with chicken manure for a period of time.  Oh my.

   Actually, your pressure washing idea is a pretty good one, but I suspect (based on what's happened to our deck) that having the lumber get very, very wet for awhile would help.

   forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
   Another proud member of the  "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>) 

1. 
   chri7s | Sep 21, 2004 08:24pm | #3

   Maybe I'll just soak a few test pieces and then have at them with the wire brush first.  If that doesn't give me deep enough grooves I'll try the sandblasting on the soaked wood.  Thanks for the input.

1. 
   Elcoholic | Sep 21, 2004 10:40pm | #4

   I've used a combination of fine (brass) and course (steel) rotary wire brushes with an angle grider to pretty good effect on a few picture frames.  Works especially well followed by several coats of milk paint and additional distressing.  A buddy cobbled together a machine with brushes ganged together sort of like a drum sander to do a lot of this.  I've wondered about subjecting the finished piece to soak, freeze and thaw (sunlamp) cycles.John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking

   The more things change ...

   We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized.  I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.

   Petronious Arbiter, 210 BC

3. 
   utternovice | Sep 21, 2004 11:55pm | #5

   I recall seeing an article a few years where boards were placed under a chute at a grain elevator/silo and the corn/wheat or whatever removed the softer wood giving them a weathered appearance. 

   A small shop built tower that used dry sand would probably also work and you can control the speed of the sand and hence the rate of material removal.  Downside is that it would probably take a lot of sand, and a LOT of shoveling to abraid a significant amount of material.