The Framers Forum

Anyone have much experience.... products, pitfalls etc.?
Much obliged.

As far as I know bleaching oak is not very easy to do. The tanin in the oak is likely to be the main problem and because oak has it's own oil in the grain, penetrating the grain with something that will lighten the tanin won'y be easy to do. There are various recipes in Frederick Oughton's book "The complete manual of wood finishing", but some of these substances have some rather old fashioned soumding names and getting them these days may prove to be a problem.

If you just want to lighten the oak, would a pale wash soaked into the wood be any good?

There's two ways to beach wood. The easy off the shelf bottle of wood bleach ( Liberon do one ) or the more "nuclear" two part wood bleach - Fiddes do one. If you want to have some control over the degree of bleaching then the Liberon is the way to go. As NYAF suggests, oak might put up a bit of a fight, so with the Liberon you can keep re-using until you get where you want to be. The two-part solution will take everything out in one go, with no control on your part. Tell us how you get on.

Use Ash instead.

Or do a 'limed' effect by washing over with white paint and wiping off.

Mark

Thank you for the link to the "woodweb" site. This internet never ceases to amaze me.

Peter.

Thanks guys, Mark, Dermot etc. Bottle of Liberinon order. Looking at that link, it seems a shame to remove all that beautiful patina. In my case I’m trying to add ‘touch and time’, to soften the new oak.