Vinegar, steel wool, water solution for floor finish

[Brad_bb]

I'm sure many have heard of using Vinegar, steel wool, and water solution to grey/oxidize wood.  Not everyone has tried it.  I tried it on oak, and Beech.  Oak seems to turn black no matter how much I watered it down.  Beech took it ok.  Where it really got interesting was on the Doug fir T&G flooring I recently stained with this solution.

I wanted an old looking floor.  A timberframer had told me that he used a 2x6 T&G Doug Fir flooring with a rough circle sawn finish.  I wanted that but with both sides circle sawn as the underside with be the ceiling on the lower floor.  After using a random orbit sander with 80 grit to knock down the raised grain and fibers, it was time to stain.  Note: the DF was Kiln dried.  I wouldn't do this on green wood, nor would I use green wood for flooring.

I mixed 16oz white distilled vinegar,48 oz water, and 1/2 a pad of #00 steel wool cut up.  I left it soak for 2 days, stirring occasionally to dissolve most of the steel wool, and then strained the mixture.

We applied it to the DF with foam sponge pad and immediately wiped it dry with a dry cotton rag.  I bought a few bags of dry cotton rags to do this.  Only use cotton, not the polyester mixed rag bags.

The boards will turn darker and darker over the next hour until it's dry.  In retrospect, I would make the solution weaker - by using only 1/4 of a pad of steel wool and a little less vinegar.  The thing is, you can always rewet it to get it darker, but once you wet it, you can't make it lighter.  The steel wool and vinegar react with the minerals in the wood and variations in color occurred.  Sapwood, or newer growth wood, took the stain differently.  Here are some pics.  Mind you, this was newly milled Doug Fir when we started.  We followed up the stain with 4 coats of Zar Aqua water based satin clear urethane, with light sanding in between to knock down the raised grain.  Now the floor is installed and I'll probably end up putting another coat or two of the water based urethane closer to the end of the project. Honestly these pics don't do the colors justice.  You can see the browns and variations better in person.



 


  

  

 

[yukon cornelius]

It looks good! We have used it some on pine and spruce. I like the look of it.

[barbender]

I think it looks awesome! Did you sand first and then stain?

[WDH]

Looks great.

[thecfarm]

Seem to have worked.

[Brad_bb]

I think it looks awesome! Did you sand first and then stain?

Yes, as I said, we sanded the rough sawn sides before staining to take the raised grain/loose fibers off with 80 grit, but not being so aggressive as to take off the circle sawn marks (which would have taken a lot of sanding to do if that were the goal).  In between coats of water based urethane, we sanded quickly to knock down any raised fibers from previous coat.  We wanted to be able to walk on it with bare feet or socks without getting a sliver.

[Ljohnsaw]

I will be doing an Aspen floor - wonder how that wood would react.  I'll have to experiment.  Since I'm cutting with a band saw, I'm not going to try to preserve saw marks.  I will plane and T&G before installation but I don't want it new-looking in my cabin and I'm not a big fan of the sometimes artificial look of stains.

[Brad_bb]

What about skip planing (planing to leave some saw marks)?  Do some tests for sure.  Try a lighter mixture as I mentioned.  And don't forget to let it sit for a couple days and stir occasionally to get the steel wool to dissolve.  Each wood has a different reaction, and sapwood and heartwood and mineral content affect the result too.  Wet it, dry it with rags, and as soon as it's dry it will stop reacting.  After an hour you're good (assuming you're doing it above 55 degrees).

[Den Socling]

I wonder if the look last. I did that to an oak end table a long time ago and, thinking back, I think it lost the "old" look. It is still sitting somewhere around the shop. I'll take a look tomorrow.

[woodweasel]

that's cool, gonna play with this. I have never heard of this . Thanks   

[Brad_bb]

I would NOT attempt to do this with a floor that is already installed.  Only on a prefinish job.  I would not want to get the stain on something I don't want it on, or have the stain run between the tongue and groove and drip down below.   Works great prefinishing though. 

What you don't see in my photos is that the other side of the board is stained with a semi transparent white stain from Permachink and then clear coated with their satin clear.  That was done first, and we were very careful not to get the vinegar stain on the white.  We prefinished the white side so that if we did get any of the darker stain on, it would be on top of the clear coat and we could get it off.  There were only a handful of places where the vinegar stain dripped won and we had to wipe it off.  A couple places we did a quick sand touched up the white/clear.