No, this post is not a comment on the current financial crisis, it ia an followup to the post weathering wood .
One of the challenges when you use real wood and want that silvery, almost boney look is that untreated wood has a base color that is more yellow than white.
In a very rare inspired moment it struck met that maybe the thing is to bleach the wood before you stain it?
Searching the web I found some recipies for belaching wood that looked promising. To make a medium length story short, I ended up using 35% hydrogen peroxide combined with a 35% solution of ammonia.
First, be warned that we are speaking industrial strength chemicals here, and not something you would hand out in primary schools during craft lessons.
Wear heavy duty rubber gloves, protective *closefitting* googles (those ammonia fumes *really* stings the eyes!). Work in a well-ventilated area with access to lots of fresh water. Work on a surfce than can be washed down with lots of water.
Wear your next worse rags, not the Ramonesque jeans with torn knees. Remember we do not want these pesky chemicals on our bare skin! You do all remember the excellent movie Fight Club (”This, my friend, is a chemical burn”). Spills will stain clothes.
Enough with the warnings, on with the tutorial.
Start by painting the raw wood with the hydrogen peroxide solution. Be generous, but you dont have to flood it. Wait for the wood to absorb most of it before you stain it with the ammonia solution Decant a small amount of ammonia in a glass container and recap the ammonia bottle. You dont want to transfer small amount of peroxide into the ammonia bottle. Strange chemical reactions could otherwise happen.
First after applying the ammonia the bleaching starts. It starts to work almost immidiately. I leave it for a couple of hours before washing the wood with lots of water. Then you just leave the wood to dry.
In this picture you can compare some 0-scale Kappler 1X6 in both its bleached and raw states:
I am somewhat puzzled by the chemistry involved in this. If you use only peroxide, no bleaching takes place. Alone, ammonia hardly leaves a trace. It seems that the ammonia acts as some kind of activator, but even my dads that holds a Phd. in chemistry cant tell me exactly whats going on. But who really cares, in my opinion it works really well! The bleached wood is an excellent starting point for your favorite staining recipes. In the next post I will tell you what my fav. recipe is. Stay tuned!
