Fuming Red Oak

[Cody Colston]

Does fuming with ammonia work on Red Oak similar to how it works on White Oak? Does it enhance the red color, darken it or what?

I'm thinking of building a piece out of QSRO and finishing by fuming and then wax. Any tips or suggestions are appreciated.

[Thomas Pender]

But, it will look fine, as long as you test first on the wood you will be using and you appreciate what you will get. (IMHO it looks better than any stain or dye.) It will pop the tannins and may accentuate the "red" cast of the wood and you may love it. If you do not like the look you get, consider one of the old recipes in the Popular Mechanics Craftsman book or buy the Rockler Stain or a water dye or even Watco Medium Walnut mixed with alittle dark. Or, do I like I do - fume white oak;).

Finally, I have no idea if you have fumed before. Please note it is a tricky and potentially dangerous process - best done outdoors in a purpose built space or structure (2x2 and plastic sheeting works fine) unless you have lab quality fume hoods and you had better have the right kind of filters for your breath mask (best to let the amonia evaporate first). Also, no kids or animals can be allowed near it. The risks are too great. (Use a pie pan or two with a little 20-30% in the bottom (depends on what you can get from the drafting supply guy).

Good luck and be safe!

Tom

[Cody Colston]

Thanks for the reply.

The reason I'm considering Red Oak is because I cannot get the 8/4 QSWO that I need from my supplier...but I can get 8/4 QSRO.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Cody, I've played around with fuming a number of different woods. I've not tried white oak, the traditional wood for fuming, because I don't have any. I have tried red oak and live oak, which both fume and I imagine all oaks will fume as I'm pretty sure they all have tannins. I didn't much care for the look of red oak and live oak turned a sickly greenish color. But you might like the looks. You will just need to play around with doing it. It mainly depends on the size enclosure and strength of ammonia you use how long the fuming needs to take. I built a small enclosure of PVC and plastic wrap and have used a pasteboard box sealed well and a big cooler also. I have access to concentrated ammonia which of course takes less time but have tried household ammonia (the cleaning stuff that sells for a buck for a half gallon) and it also works. I tried putting the container in the sun in the back yard to speed the process but couldn't get a good handle on the time requirements. I did find you don't want to do that with a small container and household ammonia; the stuff evaporated, condensed on the plastic box top and dripped on the workpiece.

I've played with several things including some native (Texas) woods and found in general the darker woods fume the best. One of the best is mesquite. I built a small chest of mesquite and fumed it....actually overfumed it. After the wood sat for four months or so and darkened naturally some more, which most woods do on aging, it almost looked like ebony. Also with mesquite the sapwood has no tannins so if you make a piece and fume it with sapwood the heartwood will turn but the sapwood remains light....be an interesting effect for turners. I don't know if this holds for other woods but my guess would be no for oak as the sapwood (at least in red oak) doesn't appear much different than heartwood. I haven't tried them but mahogany, walnut and cherry supposedly fume well. Maple/birch from the lumber yard didn't, ash didn't, sycamore didn't, and pecan just a tad but not enough to be worth doing. As far as I know softwoods have no tannins so they won't. In short, for what I've tried mesquite and oak are the two to use. The mesquite because you can make a really dark piece and quartersawn oak as the ray fleck has no tannins so doesn't turn and makes a dramatic piece. But there are a lot of species out there I haven't tried, and a lot of the tropicals (exotics) have tannins so would probaly fume OK. Also if you were to make a piece using wood that fumes and wood that doesn't it would make for "something completely different". :) The problem with something like that is although the light woods don't fume they may take on a bit of a gray cast. The nice thing about fuming over staining or dying is no surprises like sawmarks, scratches or blotchiness that pops out....what you see is what you get, just darker.

[Cody Colston]

Thanks for the info, Richard. I've worked with Mesquite quite a bit but have never tried fuming it. I may have to give that a test.

[Jared Minor]

I have fumed a little bit of mesquite. I fumed a small bowl that had some sapwood, it fumed great. I just used the household ammonia and let it sit for a day or two. I would check on it every now and again. It darkened really well, if I had left it longer, it would have looked liked ebony.

[Mike Gager]

ive read red oak turns green when fumed. just a heads up

definetly experiement on a test piece first!

[Thomas Pender]

What could you possibly need 8/4 QSWO for?

Have you thought about gluing 4/4 after smoothing and planing one side on each board? It will not be that noticeable. (Typically done with bed posts among other things.)

Tom

[Paul Redfern]

As someone mentioned upthread, watch out for the sapwood. I have only done one small piece and it was with QSWO. I did not know about the sapwood and had some big white skunk stripes in my project. Sapwood can be hard to see in white oak if you are not looking for it. Found these pics.