Any woodworkers?

Nice!

 

I've not ever tried that. But it looks awesome!

 

That is pretty neat

 

Are you going to do the tea or coffee thing too?

 

I have had two jars of this running for the past day. I used the typical mason jar, a whole piece of the steel wool (#0000 grade, torn into smaller pieces), and enough 5% white vinegar to cover the steel wool. The steel wool floats, so I shook it up every now and then. It also starts bubbling after about an hour and oxidizing/rusting a little too. I barely tightened the lid because the reaction lets off gas and I didn't want too much pressure building up in the glass jars. A lot of the places I looked online said to only let the stuff react for about a day. So today I put the stuff on some wood. All I had was some studs. I think they are the Douglas Fir/red pine, because they've got the reddish tint. The stuff barely shows up when you first put it on, but give it about ten minutes and it really starts giving the gray, weathered look. It's pretty cool. I think you could probably alter how dark you want it to be by varying how much steel wool you use compared to vinegar, how long you let it sit in the jar, and obviously how many coats you use.

Edit: I also used some coffee that I brewed pretty dark to try on one part of the stud to bring out the tannins, but compared to the side of the board with no coffee there was no real difference.

 

From what I remember in chemistry, sunlight can speed up the reaction. The stuff does take pretty good, the stud I used wasn't extremely white, but still pretty light. It still took it pretty good. So if you're leaving it to react that long, you might only need one coat. Is your stuff spruce/true whitewood or yellow pine? Like I said, the coffee didn't make much of a difference from what I could tel earlier, but I'm going to check it back out here in a minute since it has dried some more.

I'm going to take pics in a little bit. Are you talking about pictures of the wood or of my jar of mixture?

 

The first picture is of the mixture. I'd already taken out the steel wool. It really isn't that dark at all, just slightly gray. As dark as it turned the wood, I don't think I'll let mine sit for more than a day unless I'm using extremely light wood. Much longer, or darker wood and it would almost be black.
Second picture is of the whole piece of 2x4 stud. The left side had two coats of just the mixture. The middle is just a strip of one coat. The right side had one coat of really strong coffee, then two coats of the mixture. There was about 30 minutes between coats.
The third picture is just of the back of the stud to show the original color. It's pretty much a brand new stud, so no previous weathering.
The fourth picture is the right side (coffee and two coats) and the last picture is of the left side (two coats).

I don't have the best camera, so the color is a tad off. It's a little lighter in person. It had been sitting for about 1-2 hours when I took the pictures. I also put on kind of thin coats and didn't get some spots that great, but I was just testing it out. We'll see for sure how they turn out tomorrow. I'm thinking I'll try a wax coat over it to see what finish I can put on it. I want more of a matte finish, not much shine.

 

Thanks for the link. I think I'll try and use this for my kitchen island cart. I'm going to try it on redwood when I get to it.

 

Beautiful works, and fine Craftsmanship there Sir....

 

I'm building a picket fence with custom cut ends,not bad for a plumber I'd like to paint but really thinking of a wash instead,or stain. Anybody have any recommendations?

 

The red oak looks good. Definitely is all about the tannins. Good luck with the tea, maybe it has more tannins than the coffee I tried.

 

oooh... a woodworking thread! Love some of the stuff I've seen here so I thought I'd contribute...

The latest is a built-in entertainment center/bookcase/storage-thingy I just finished (the little wine rack isn't part of it--we just need to figure out where to put it):


I designed it using google Sketchup and went through lots of design changes along the way. It's a great program not just for working out a design but also figuring out how it will all fit together and the order of assembly (particularly since I don't do this for living and sort of figure it out as I go). Many costly mistakes have been avoided!


and a built-in bookcase with a display case I did for my in-laws:


And a kayak just for good measure:


I'm about to start on a trestle table using a 6' x 4' x 3" slab of wood I acquired a while back that's been sitting around waiting to be made into something. I'm not even sure what species it is, but it weighs a friggin ton.

 

Damn nice kayak!

 

impressive!!

 

I built my mom a nice planter box for mothers day so she can put that on her deck or something, now I am trying to think of ideas of what I can build for my dad. I thought of a gun rack for on his wall, but I don't think he would want to store his guns somewhere that isn't in his safe.

I am also thinking a wine rack of some kind, because he has a TON of wine. I was going to try and find out what kind of cabinets he's got so I can try to match them. Anyone know of any good designs for a wine rack or shelf?

 

Too bad I has no wood working tools . I made jewelry boxes once they come out good I was pretty proud of them lol (borrowed bandsaw/tools at school)

 

^Sweet!

 

My 'first' wood working project. My dad is a major wood worker, I'm a computer nerd. He helped me use the tools, and I came up with this.

 

Pretty cool!

 

That looks awesome. I would love to build one just like that.