Lightening dark stained beams?

[Lobster]

Currently embarking on a major refurb of the living room.

There are two stonking timber beams across the ceiling (about 8" square by 13' long), which a previous owner has covered with a very dark, shiny varnish of some sort:

It Has Been Decreed that these beams should be rendered paler and natural; AFAIK they are pitch pine, so in theory ought to look like this fireplace lintel, which was made from original timber taken from elsewhere in the (100-year-old) house:

Anyone got any bright ideas how to do this? I can't imagine any form of chemical stripper is going to get them back to natural colour; and sanding that amount of area at that height seems a non-starter too. It's difficult not knowing what sort of varnish (or whatever) has been used before

Was wondering about cladding them in veneer or something? Thanks for any input...

[Bob Minchin]

The only way will be to take some material away as the stain/varnish will have soaked in to some extent. Messy job but sand blasting would do the trick.

[The Natural Philosopher]

empty the room and grit blast them

Only sure way.

[Adrian]

Sand-blasted old timber always looks godawful, usually found in stripped- back "theme pubs".

But probably not as bad as veneer...

Lobster - if veneering them'd be acceptable, wouldn't painting them? Somebody's painted the beams in a few of our rooms - more of a wash than a coat of paint, and it looks very, very good.

[stuart noble]

Dab it with some washing soda on a sheet of kitchen roll. If the colour comes off on the paper, your varnish is probably an alkali soluble resin which, in theory, is strippable in situ.

[harryagain]

Veneer will look even worse IMO. The only way to get it off is by chemical stripping. Do a small area first so you can see what you get. Tedious job. Some stuff comes off in lumps, other turns into glue (bloody awful to remove.)

And ideal job for She Who Has Decreed. It will be a good lesson WRT any further decrees that may be in the pipeline.

[Tim Lamb]

We have similar supporting Pitch Pine beams in our Victorian farmhouse. At some point, possibly 1938, they had been coated with a product called

*Darkaline*. When we renovated the place in 1995 this was cleaned off. Unfortunately I can't remember the actual technique used. Either heating with a hot air blower and scraping with a triangular scraper or the original Nitromors plus scraping. The rest succumbed to an orbital sander.

Although described as a *stain* there was very little actual penetration of the wood.

[meow2222]

Shiny means little penetration, so it should be possible, just a question of trying the different options.

Tim mentioned 1930s darkaline. I suspect that would be aniline dye; if so its susceptibilities can be looked up.

NT

[JimK]

Never tried but aren't there some poultice like stripping products that you slap on cover with cling film and leave for days then peel off?.....

Jim K

[stuart noble]

They only work if the varnish is animal or vegetable derived. Modern synthetic products are unaffected. And, if they do work, very difficult to stop them obeying the laws of gravity

[Harry Bloomfield]

Tim Lamb formulated the question :

I had some success with a rotary wire brush. It left the wood surface rather uneven, due to variations in hardness due to the growth, but once re-varnished the effect was quite good.

[JimK]

Ahem

For e.g.

"PeelAway® products remove up to 32 coats of paint in one application and are Ideal to remove emulsion and dispersion paints, household paints, poly urethane coatings, shellac, epoxy coatings, acrylic, 2 component paints, po wder coatings, glazes, marine coatings, taar oil combinations, lead based p aint, graffiti, industrial coatings, fire protection coating and wax staini ng from facades (facade), windows, brick walls, sandstone, lime stone, stee l, copper, aluminium, brass, metal, wood, pipelines, bridges, concrete, sto ne, masonry, fireplaces (fireplace) and glass."

Jim K

[JimK]

I had some success with a rotary wire brush. It left the wood surface rather uneven, due to variations in hardness due to the growth, but once re-varnished the effect was quite good./

ITYM angle grinder :-)

Jim K

[stuart noble]

Ahem indeed! I'm obviously out of date. That was traditionally a caustic based product so I guess they've switched the formulation to the non-hazardous (and some would say non-working) eco-friendly gel stuff. Same applies about working overhead though. If it's dissolving the surface coating, how do you keep it up there?

[JimK]

Seems you need to visit their website to update/avail yourself of the details... ;^)

Jim K

[Martin Brown]

You are going to have to experiment to discover what is there and how much material you will have to take off to get to original wood. It might not be that bad but to work at height you will need a platform and a fairly potent sander. You might get most of it off with a hot air gun and a scraper provided that you don't scorch the wood and then sand to get the last bits. Chemicals might work but you will need good eye protection and rubber gloves and the results can be uncertain.

Whatever you decide to do try it out on a hard to see corner first!

Up to you I suppose but original wood will look better. Pitch pine can have nice detail grain if sanded back but it is incredibly tedious.

The only worry is that the dark stain is there for a reason and the underlying wood looks like it has been through the wars.

[Thomas Prufer]

Consider if "woodgraining" it would be an option? (There must be a better term than "woodgraining wood" -- but google does find what I mean.)

This making a faux woodgrain effect with pigments and binders. Originally it would have been done with a pale oil base paint to match the lightest bit of the wood you are traying to imitate. Then the darker bits were added. (Originally using a mix of pigment in stale beer: This allows the grain to be worked, wiped off, redone until satisfactory, and it would dry to s surprisingly resistant finish.)

A lighter base, darker oil glaze and a paintbrush will also do. I was admiring nice wainscoting once, complete with panels with symmetrical grain patterns where the boards were sawn and joined. Then noted that the woodgrain did not match the run of the wood, and that it also extended across the metal hinges... all done with a bit of paint:-)

So that would mean practice a bit, paint it, done.

(Anything is better than sanding overhead. Tried that, using a large belt sander on a ladder...)

Thomas Prufer

[John Williamson]

Scumbling. HTH.

It's still used a lot on narrowboats in the traditional style back cabins.

[Lobster]

On 27 Apr 2014, JimK grunted:

Looks an interesting product, having explored their website. I suspect it wouldn't work for me , since as somebody pointed out upthread, the stuff is likely to have penetrated the timber.

Thanks for all the replies to my query. There are a few I'd like to try but I'm loathe to experiment as there's nowhere invisible where I can check them out, without bollocksing up the beam if I decide it has to stay as it is.

We have these beams in two other rooms; in one of which we've kept them dark, and in the other we painted them pale. Those look s**te!

I'd be up for hiring someone to do this job

[Lobster]

On 13 Jun 2014, Lobster grunted:

That's bloody weird - I remember writing the above - unfinished - post months ago, and it's just appeared here!

(Never have sorted out my beams - still keep looking at them and scratching my head...)