Varnish or stain?! HELP!

[crymshady1]

Hi people. Having recently registered and taken some advice on ironwork spindles for a new set of stairs, I'm now looking for help on how to treat the woodwork.

The stairs we've had built are made of pine. All of the furniture in our house is made from chunky, rough sawn pine and has been finished with bee's wax which gives it a deep honey/light brown colour. See pic below for our dining table.



Ideally we'd like the stairs to end up looking the same. Currently they look like something from a Swedish Sauna, all machine cut, smooth finish and obviously very pale!

Can anyone help advice how I go about distressing the wood and also what staining or varnishing process would be best to achieve the results I'm looking for?

All help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks[/img]

 

[stuart45]

There are various methods for distressing timber. You can take off the sharp edges with a sharp chisel. Don't worry about getting an even cut. Another way is to wrap up some nuts and bolts in a cloth and hit the timber, the more you hit it the older it will look. You can also drill in some woodworm holes.
When it comes to staining test it out on a small piece first. The same stain will come out differently on different timbers.

 

[crymshady1]

Hi Stuart, thanks for the advice. I don't think I've explained myself very well though. I'm looking for some way to distress the timber to bring out the grain more and give the wood a look as if it has been rough sawn rather than the plain sanded look it currently has.

All our furniture has a rough grainy feel to it, and the bee's wax fills the grain to give it a darker tint.

Any other suggestions for achieving this?

 

[stuart45]

Try using a wire brush, going with the grain. On oak a caustic soda solution raises the grain and darkens the wood. They do this at restoration yards to age the oak. I don't know if it works with pine. You don't really want the timber to be too rough. Sawn timber is full of splinters.

 

[Symptoms]

shady - stuart's wire brush will work well but if you want a more even texture to your wood to get that "rough grainy feel" then use a piece of file-card. This is a type of wire brush available in cut lengths ... it's a cloth belt with very short (maybe 6mm - 8mm) close wire bristles. You glue or pin this stuff onto a piece of wood (to act as a handle - sand smooth to avoid blisters) and rub your timbers with it. A length of steel chain (600mm long) can be used to round-over all sharp corners.

File card is available from engineers suppliers (they use it to clean their files).