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With all the torrified and distressed tops I see lately, I was wondering. Has anyone ever fumed a top with ammonia?

I don't know how rich in tannins spruce is, but a couple of hours in a plastic sheet tent with a pan of ammonia will really go to work on white oak, and it looks nice. You have to watch it. If you leave it in too long it'll look like ebony when you remember it.

I would imagine that there are a lot of back and side woods that would respond pretty well to this, too.

Another one I saw something about was patinating wood with ethanolamine. Any one know about that?

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Rick

I've been planning on doing a bit of experimenting on fuming non-tannin woods. I'm going to try to make a tannin solution by simmering oak shavings in distilled water, treat the wood, and fume with ammonia.
Whenever you fume, put several test pieces in with what you are treating, and take one out every hour or so until you get the degree of colour that you want.
I'll just make sure that I get a pot from Value Village to do it in! Let us know how things turn out, Rick.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

The Cherry J45 I have on my bench now was fumed for 10 days. I like the look of it. Have not tried spruce yet.
Alex, if you want to make a tea for adding tannins, get some querbracho bark extract from any taxidermy supplier. I picked up a pound box from http://www.vandykestaxidermy.com/Bark-Tan-W180.aspx a few years ago to ebonize some low tannin wood. Make a tea from it, and brush it on the wood, then fume or apply vinageroon to darken.

Bob

Thanks, Bob. That sounds better than stinking up the kitchen!

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Now there's some good info! I actually hadn't thought about adding tannins. I did see an article somewhere about using spruce bark as a source of tannins, but I don't think the actual wood itself has a very high tannin content.

I never thought of taxidermy supply, but that's a great idea!

Thanks for the replies! I always get some good answers in this forum. I'm thinking about doing this with an L-00 type that I want to build this winter. If I do, I'll post pictures.

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Rick

Any pictures of the Cherry?

I'm sure I've tormented a top or two. Not long ago one of my tops saw me pick up a chisel and went running out of my shop screaming!

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Have you checked michi matsuda' scorched guitar? That goes a little beyond fuming it, I think there's a clip on ytube. Stunning guitar - on my to do list when I get ballsy about building.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Check out www.mehling-Wiesmann.de and as an appetizer perhaps some fumed larch https://goo.gl/photos/Kd3eWLG8HfEYwCg38

Spruce does not fume due to its quite high ph-value, lack of acid....

Cheers, Alex

I once got reported to the SPCT..............................(society for the prevention of cruelty to tops)..........!!!
Tom

P.S. The comedians union also told me not to give up my day job!!!

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

I'd like to know more about this. I have been kicking around the idea of fuming a cherry guitar myself. My biggest concern was that the spruce would either not fume evenly or turn a gross color. Did you fume the body before installing the top? I was planning on fuming an assembled and prepped box because I don't want to worry about sanding/scraping through the fumed color.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

What is the purpose of fuming?

There shoudn't be any problem with sanding through the colour, Bryan. Depending how long the wood is fumed, the colour can be as deep as 1/8".

If you can fume cherry, Ed, you can get a deep rich colour that you can't get by using stain without getting severe blotching.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Nice write-up here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia_fuming


"Ammonia fuming is a wood finishing process that darkens wood and brings out the grain pattern....The wood to be fumed is placed in a sealed chamber with....[a] large shallow container of ammonium hydroxide solution....Fuming has an advantage over staining in that it does not obscure the grain.... Unlike staining, there is no possibility of blotches or runs....Fuming has the disadvantage that it is not a very precise process....Fuming has some inconvenient safety issues."

I have never heard of fuming spruce, but it might have the advantage of darkening it more evenly than dyes, which can penetrate unevenly. Cherry is easily darkened by brushing with a lye solution, though there are some reports of issues with laps and runs showing in the finished product.

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Tim Allen
"Never hurry, never rest."

Thanks Alex. My original plan was to fume the set before I made the box. About a year ago, I did some hasty and poorly controlled experiments with chunks of various woods. I was unable to get anywhere near that level of penetration on denser woods. It is good to hear that up to 1/8" is feasible. Even with a rough set of guitar wood, 1/8" from both sides would be more than enough. I'll have to do some better experiments. I did not use industrial concentration of ammonia; I went with what was available. My rationale at the time was that I would substitute time for concentration. I was really intending to gauge what color different woods would change to not penetration. So in my mind, a few weeks sealed up with a low concentration would still show the full reaction.

As a side note but related to the discussion. Spruce (engleman) was one of the woods I tested. Unfortunately the spruce sample fell off its support and directly into the ammonia. It was completely saturated by the time I opened the container and discovered it. So I don't know how it reacts to fuming, but I can say that if you soak it in ammonia it turns a nasty looking gray color.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Bryan, I fumed the cherry after bending and jointing the top, but before assembly. I found that the fuming softened the bend a little after I removed it , so I had to put it in the form for a week or so, out in the garage til it gassed off the ammonia smell, and the shape came back firm.
The reason I went for 10 days was to get complete penetration so as to not get any colour changes when sanding. I tried a test piece of leopard wood binding at the same time and it came out a dark purple-ish colour. In hindsight, I wish I had done the all the binding pieces at the same time, as they looked good. Hope to have pics before xmas.

Bob

Alex, if you get the extract, wear rubber gloves, etc. as it stains clothes and concrete floors permanent. I have a large brown stain on the utility room floor from the quart of "tea" I knocked on the floor. The concrete just soaked it up.

Bob

You need to change your ammonia, as it loses it's effectiveness after a while, Bryan. When you fume oak, it comes out a puky grey colour, but when you apply finish, it really pops!
I bought a sample bottle of Rubio Monocoat Fume solution that I haven't tried yet ( 'cause I just remembered that I had it! ). I think you just wipe it on, and top coat with an oil based finish. I'm not sure if it works with non tannin woods. I've been using WB finish for the last five years, so any oil finish I have might be solid by now.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Looking into this further, I found this paper, which you might find interesting:

http://www.researchgate.net/publication ... e_finishes

Apparently you can fume spruce and cherry to create an age patina with a ten percent ethanolamine solution. They used a Merck product, which seems to be available here:

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/pro ... &region=US

I found another paper where they found that treating wood with copper/ethanolamine treatment changed the modulus of elasticity of the wood and caused depolymerization of the lignin, but in that case, they applied the stuff directly to the wood. I wouldn't expect much of that effect just fuming with a ten percent solution.

Interesting reading.

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Rick

We are fuming lumber trough and trough up to 80mm thick, so there will be no color change when sanding, resawing, routing etc....also our wood does not stink at all, because we neutralize the amonia after the fuming process.

Natural Eucalyptus:




Fumed Eucalyptus:

Wow that is beautiful! This thread is encouraging me to start experimenting again (and more seriously). You are getting penetration up to 80mm (more than 3 inches). That impresses me, are you using any extraordinary measures to do this?

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I didn't have any luck with store bought ammonia and oak. But the vinegar and steel wool treatment worked great.

Household ammonia cleaner is a very dilute concentration. One thing to remember is NEVER mix ammonia with bleach. Together they form hydochloric acid, and the resulting vapour can be deadly.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Yeah, that old floor scrubbing ammonia from the grocery store is pretty dilute. Try to get some anhydrous ammonia at the farm store or something.

And as Alex mentioned, keep it away from the bleach! The fumes from that mix will tear your lungs up. You can die from it. And it'll burn you if it gets on you, too. Like something from the trenches in WWI.

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Rick