Bleaching wood

[millwab]

Scrollers,
Has anyone had any experience with bleaching wood? I'd like to try either bleaching (to lighten the wood) or using a thin wash coat of light color. I want to try both to see how they come out but I'm not sure what kind of a bleach mixture to use or how long to keep it on the wood. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanx.

[William Young]

Depends on the size of the pieces you want to bleach.
I turn deer antlers to snow white for making pens with them on my wood lathe.
I put them in a jar of hydrogen peroxide.
W.Y.

[lucky788scroller]

I have bleached a little bit of wood.I did not use no special recipe, I just soaked the wood with clorox. Test it on some scraps, each wood reacts differently. Lacewood bleaches to where the speckles look almost glow in the dark, wenge turns out awesome looking, and from what I recently read on woodworkerssource, many bleach walnut to get an even color for the sapwood/heartwood, then stain it to their desired walnut shade. Bleaching doesnt take long, and depending on the efect you are after, it could be minutes, to a few hours. All the bleaching I have done was smaller pieces, just soaked in clorox until i felt they were what i wanted.Dale

[Magpie]

I haven't tried bleaching but I have used wash coats of white acrylic paint and white gel stain with pretty good success.

[jigsue]

I have bleached all sorts of wood. When we rebuilt our kitchen, we retained the elm doors. They had turned very dark over time and I bleached them and then lime-waxed them to keep them lighter. There are wood-bleaches available on the market here in the UK, so I am sure they are available in the US and am also confident they would be suitable for small pieces, too.

Good luck


Sue