Achieved a Stickley fumed finish on QSWO

[William Chain]

Well I managed to get a great finish on my most recent QSWO Morris chair, again following the plans Robert Lang had in PW and his own books. I think I managed to get close to a Stickley fumed finish. I built a simple tent, slid in the chair, and slid in a glass pie plate with 28% ammonia. 72h at about 50 degrees in the garage (no heat) and out popped a nicely darkened piece. It was fairly green. After 5 coats of dewaxed amber shellac (Brooklyn Tool & Craft “tiger flakes”, 1lb cut in ethanol), hand rubbed in between the last three coats with a maroon scotch pad. I think it came out great. Ready for the upholsterer to do his thing.

[Mark Rainey]

Nice work William

[Art Mann]

Nice job with the finish. I kind of wish I had tried fuming on the Morris chair I built.

The pictures are harder to appreciate sideways.

[David Utterback]

Thanks for posting. Really like the results. How many of the chairs have you made?

[William Chain]

Two of this plan, and one of another. This is my first fumed piece and I think I’ll do it again.

[Dave Cav]

Looks great. I've fumed a couple or three pieces; love the way it looks.

[Bill McCarthy]

That chair looks very nice.

When I first read your post a few days ago, I needed to look up what a fumed finish was. Since learning about it, its brought up a different question for me. For a brief period I tried messing around with some leather work. I wasn't very good at it, that's why it was brief. During that time though, I learned about vinegaroon or its sometimes called vinegar black. Right now I don't recall the correct name of the acid that is made, but you make it by dissolving iron/steel in vinegar. You then apply it to the leather and it reacts with the tannins in the leather and turns the leather black. Because its a chemical reaction, the black doesn't fade or rub off like a dye or stain could. When reading about fuming, it sounds as if a similar process takes place but it also sounded a little hit or miss to me. The end result was not always completely predictable. Has anyone tried using vinegaroon on wood? The oak, having a high tannin content sounds like it would be a good candidate. At least with the leather, if it wasn't dark enough I'd just "paint" on a little more. I think the reaction time (at least for the leather) was much faster than the time it takes to fume the wood (measured in minutes, not hours). The real time component with the vinegaroon was making it, which I discovered could be greatly accelerated by adding hydrogen peroxide and/or heating the vinegar steel mix.

Just something I thought I'd throw out there to consider.