Ageing new pine doors

Leave them outside for a few weeks.

If you are keen to get old-looking doors, look in the small-ads of your local paper. There's usually someone somewhere wanting to get rid of 'old & lived in' to replace them with 'bright and shiny'.

I've had reasonable results with pine by staining with 'antique pine' stain (Rustin's, quite subtle), then applying an antique pine coloured wax. Of course, you won't get any 'texture' using this approach, for that you'll probably have to beat it with chains, then lightly burn it here and there with a hot air gun, then finally rub grime into it and polish it up ( more on the edges and around the doorknob etc). ;-)

Andy

Not quite on the right topic, but Wickes were doing a special offer on their non-knotty (clear pine?) doors a couple of weeks back. If there's some way of ageing them I'd rather start with those.

Dave

The guy on "The Salvager" on TV last night used a mild caustic solution to do this.

J> I want to replace the upstairs white, flat doors with pine ones.. The original idea

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Yeah, knotties sometimes warp. It is common to stain pine, but I really think its a mistake. Have some patience, and the end result of natural colouring looks miles nicer.

NT

If you've bought some solid pine doors, I'd take them back for a refund, ASAP.

I made the foolish mistake of buying half-a-dozen for upstairs here. I only ever hung 2. They're so warped as to be useless, even after conditioning, and in the case of the unused ones, a year or so under several hundred kilos of diving equipment in a desperate attempt to get them straight.

Free to whoever wants to collect them.

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I snipped this from a Website. Might be worth testing on a spare piece of wood just to get a feel for how it works.

Aging Wood Artificially As wood ages, the surfaces that are exposed to light and air tend to grow darker. (Only walnut and mahogany grow lighter.) This phenomenon helps to give antique furniture its lustrous patina. When making reproduction of antiques, you can create an artificial patina by applying a 10-percent solution of nitric acid (available from most chemical-supply companies). Let the acid soak into the surface of the new wood for several minutes, then warm it with a heat gun. As the temperature of the surface climbs, the wood will suddenly turn dark. Continue to apply heat until the wood surface is dried thoroughly. When applying the acid, be sure to wear rubber gloves and a full face shield. work outdoors or in a well-ventilated room.

It's often puzzled me how a door will warp when it's given the first, small opportunity to do so. I've seen doors that have been hung for over a century without going out of true. Yet, once taken from their frames and stacked or leant against a wall without careful avoidance of deforming stresses and they'll twist out of shape in a couple of hours. Trying to counter this problem with heavy weights and wet cloths is almost always doomed to failure in my experience.

Bloody awful advice. You'll change the colour, but it's an entirely artificial stain and it bears no relation to an "antique" look. It's also an extremely finicky process and very hard to make consistent.

Read Bill Knight's "Staining and Finishing for Muzzleloading Gun Builders" if you want the full story on nitric acid and ferrous nitrate for colouring timber.

Yep - bought a load of their clear pine ones for upstairs and wife is loving applying 8 very thin coats of stain to them in only the way she can (I'm a slop it on thick man) after which they look virtually as good as the hardwood ones we use in the living rooms.

Didn't have a problem with ours. In fact it's the hardwood ones that warp slightly if anything. Did you stain or paint them ? If so did you keep the amount on each side the same at all times with low himidity and in a temperature

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If you're in the NW I've got some old pine 4 panel ones but they all need a bit of work as they've been hacked around with different door knobs and whatever.

Have them caustic dipped if you have a stripper locally. They'll only need a few minutes in a hot tank. Then Briwax P7 mid brown wax. This doesn't change the colour unduly, but tones down the orange look. If the doors are going to warp, they'll warp whatever you do/don't do once they acclimatise to your central heating. Nitric acid (aka "pickling") is a bloody awful finish and more trouble than it's worth. Vandyke crystals from any wood finish wholesaler give a nice colour at 1% in water.

That and sandblasting will make them look as awful as the stuff you see in rec. yards is.

I would point out thought that Wickes and some other brands of door specifically state they are not suitable for waxing and so would suggest you avoid them if you want to do this..

I've had reasonable results using stong, cold tea! I know it's staining rather than aging but it does give a subtle, "patchy" effect.Then mix cigarette ash and water into a paste and give it a quick rub over (the smell fades very quickly, but I suppose you could use barbecue ash if you are vehemently anti smoking!). I then gave the door a good talking to with a leather mallet!!

Stop laughing at the back .... it worked :-)

Of course if your a non-smoking person who despises tea and doesn't own a leather mallet the easy option is to buy old doors to start with ;-)