Varathane wood accelerator

[Ronn W]

Does any one have any experience with this stuff?

http://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/varathane/weathered-wood-accelerator

I am playing around with the old vinegar and steel wool trick on white oak and am not getting what my daughter wants.

[wtnhighlander]

Not familiar with the product, but what is she looking for? Vinegar & iron tend to make oak pretty dark. Is a driftwood color more to her liking? There are "white lime" finishes for hardwoid floors that might do the trick, or you can try another home-grown recipe with this:

 

http://www.drano.com/en-us/products/drano-professional-strength-crystals-clog-remover

 

It is just lye, which is supposed to give oak a more sun-bleached appearance.

 

 

Having said that, and even though I enjoy the mad scientist aspect of chemical treatments for coloring / aging wood, I do find them pretty inconsistent.

[ormonddmd]

I've heard if the wood isn't reacting enough, it might be due to a lack of tannins, which is what the vinegar/steel wool reacts with. Try steeping tea and brushing on a coat, let dry, then try the vinegar/steel wool mixture.

 

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Tpt life]

There are two conversations happening here. Tea and iron acetate Darken. The Rustoleum product Fades to gray. I suspect it is a heavy base as peroxide will do this in heavy concentration. 

 

[Ronn W]

Ii have been playing around with the accelerator.  The varathane is not very concentrated and gives white oak a bluish gray tint with some of the wood color showing through.  But when I put a coat of ARS on it the effect of the accelrator almost completely dissappeared.  Simlilar result with GF high performance water based poly.  Also, the and grit used in prep makes a difference 120 gives and darker and bluer color than 150 grit.

I also tried Varathanes stain (weathered oak)  It also has more gray but still a little bluish tint to it when it dries.  Then, just for the hell of it, I stained with General finishes white water based stain (quick rub on/rub off) over the varathane stain and got an got an interesting lighter gray that varied a litle with the grain but with less blue.  1 coat of ARS just darkened it slightly.  Just have to let my daughter pick what works for her.

I also tired a vinegar and steel wool recipe of various dilutions.  Some of the oak was a decent light gray but different grain directions gave me radically different colors on the same board from medium brown to purple depending on the strength of the mixture.

I have a batch of steel wool in pickle juice brewing right now.  I will try that in a couple of days.  I expect similar results to the vinegar.

Yeah, it's very inconsistent.  Right not I would be very hesitant to put it on a large 6/4 table top.  Now I am just rambling so I will stop/

[ormonddmd]

I just sanded my cedar garage door that was originally stained and finished with urethane, down to the bare wood and want a weathered look, but with protection. I'm looking at a Penofin oil product that I can apply and reapply yearly without having to sand the finish off like I had to this time. I called the Rust-Oleum people that make the Varithane Weathered Accelerator and they said it was an interior product ONLY. Any ideas how I can get a grey weathered look prior to the oil application without sealing the pores of the wood so it will still accept the permitting oil?

The garage door is on our log home and a brand new looking garage door just doesn't fit esthetically.

 

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

 

 

[wdwerker]

Think faux finishing techniques !

[wtnhighlander]

Do nothing until next summer.

[Tmize]

Baking soda an water gives white oak an weathered look play around with the amounts a little bit  because it will change the tint with just a small change in recipe. Marc has a old video on how to do it which I learned from. But make sure an check each board with mineral spirits first because the smallest grain mismatch will show I would upload a few pics but my stupid phone won't let me

[SawDustB]

The quickest way to gray cedar is to get any kind of iron or steel residue on it. I found that out when I ground off a screw that was poking through, and suddenly a quarter of my deck around it turned gray. I would guess that the iron acetate methods would work pretty well on it - cedar will react with bare steel or iron.

[HandcraftedbyHannah]

So I just put this on a barn door and it is Blue/purple! 
 

how do I get it off? Can I stain over it? Going for a grey and this did not work! 

[wtnhighlander]

Using iron acetate, or any other chemical colorant, can produce a wide variation in results, especially on different wood species. If you got a blue / purple shade, my guess is that your door is red oak. A single application doesn't penetrate too deeply, but the only way to effectively remove it is to sand or scrape back to raw wood. You can stain over it, but a pretty opaque stain will be necessary to hide the color.

A possible alternative would be to use an oxalic acid product to 'bleach' the wood. That might lighten the color enough for an applied stain to work without being so opaque.

[Amber]

Hi I am new to this thread, but it seems enough time has passed that I can hijack the thread a little without making too many enemies! For context, I have a beautiful European white oak floor that has a professional reactive stain (installed a year ago) and is perfect. Fast forward - I would like to retread my stairs with as a close a match as possible, but the wood guy who did my floor wants $5K for a simple closed staircase with one landing. I am pretty handy and am thinking of tackling this myself with unfinished white oak retrotreads and a different Varathane product called Aged Wood Accelerator (as opposed to the Weathered Wood Accelerator).  Can y'all talk me down or encourage me...or give me other options?

All opinions and suggestions are welcome. Thank you for  reading my ramblings if you made it this far. 

[JohnG]

I would start out by buying a small amount of the varthane product and a single tread. Go through the entire process of prepping and finishing the tread. Do you like the results? Can you imagine yourself doing X more? (However many stairs you have)

Do you have all the tools needed to remove the existing treads, any trim or other items that need to be removed to get the treads out, trimming the treads to width (you may need to fit each tread separately). Do you feel comfortable reinstalling or replacing the trim (if needs to be removed earlier). 

Calculate the cost of materials to do it yourself, then after you do the single tread calculate how long it might take you to do the whole staircase. It might turn out that $5k sounds good in the end.