Dealing with gray stains in yellow pine

[Doug Nicholson]

Alright, so my son (14 years old) wanted a new desk in his room. "Black top, wood bottom," says he. To avoid a trip to Ikea and prove a point to him that I could make it for less and make it 100X better with a little elbow grease.... The top is done. Solid southern yellow pine, glued up, finished with black lacquer paint and about 4-5 coats of polyurethane in prep for the Coke cans and sweaty McDonald's cups. Then I went and picked up a nice 2x12 for the legs and aprons. By nice, I mean very straight grain down the middle of the tree. I glued the legs up to make 2 1/4" squares, but the aprons are some great quartersawn material. The only problem is the gray stains. Yeah, I bought it at Home Depot. I was thinking the stains were only surface blemishes and would disappear as I milled and planed the pieces. Wrong was I! These stains run all the way through. So, my question is, now that I've got about half way thru the making of the base.... Is there anything I can do to remove the gray stains?? If not, I'm looking at either a gray stain or painting in which case I have failed miserably in making myself look better than Ikea (to a 14 year old). Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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[Conrad Fiore]

Embrace it. Some folks are marketing blue stain pine as "denim pine" and selling it as designer furniture. I've had some staining in pine cupboards that I built and I think it just adds some character to the piece. A little dye goes a long way to bringing everything together. If clear IKEA whitewood is what you are after, then it looks like you will be shopping for new lumber and remaking the legs and base.

[Stan Calow]

two-part bleach?

[Larry Frank]

I always look for blue pine boards and buy the really good ones. I do some Intarsia with natural colored woods and this is the best source for blue and grey.

One person's trash is another's treasure.

[Scott Holmes]

Oxalic bleach will remove the mineral stains. You can try regular chlorine bleach first. 2 part wood bleach will remove most of the color from the wood.

[Art Mann]

That doesn't look like mineral stains to me. That looks like plain old blue stain caused by fungal growth. That is perfectly acceptable as construction grade lumber.

[Doug Nicholson]

After consulting with my "customer" I've decided to just stain it gray. I did a couple of tests and while it isn't something I would want in my living room, the son is OK with it. First a light coats of shellac to seal it, then some medium grit sandpaper to abrade. Following that with Minwax gray stain and then some more sandpaper to even things out. After that I'll shellac and it will be done. I'll post a pic when it's complete.

Thanks for the input. Next time I'll look for a cleaner board or go to a lumber yard and pay a little more for some clear lumber.

[Doug Nicholson]

As promised here's a couple of pics of the finished product. The first one looks like there's a line across the apron but that's a shadow from my crappy lighting and cell phone pic. Even though the solid gray isn't the color i was going for I think it's better than the splotchy stains would have been.
Thanks for the input, guys.
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