Monday, November 16, 2015

Restoring timber with Oxalic Acid

My beautiful sideboard that I painted years ago got wrecked a few months ago when I used a vase that wasn't really a vase (despite the lady who sold it to me saying it was) and the water leaked through and left a massive black mark on the beautiful walnut top. For months I didn't get around to fixing it and just covered it up with a jug or ornament.  Finally I bought some oxalic acid and bleached out the black mark however the whole top was then dried out and patchy.  ASCP Dark Wax to the rescue. First I sanded down the whole sideboard using finer and finer grades of sand paper. Once I was happy with how smooth it was I wiped on dark wax and scrubbed it straight into the timber then buffed it off. The sideboard now looks back to brand new and is silky smooth.  the whole process took around 30 minutes and I'm thrilled.




It looks patchy but in real life it isn't. There's a skylight above the sideboard so it throws light around and makes it hard to capture the sideboard correctly. 

This is one of those projects that I was wondering why on earth it took me so long to do.

I've got a few of them...best I get stuck into them and tick them off the list as I swear I spend more time thinking about them than it would actually take to just do them. Lots of mental space being taken up by my to do list.

Fiona xx

1 comment:

  1. I think you did a cracking job Fiona...I do know what you mean about spending more time thinking about jobs than actually doing them! I have a chest of drawers to finish...I had nearly finished painting it when the carpenter came and bang down loads of tools on top of it (it was in my wreck of a kitchen..its where I paint) and chipped the top..as you can imagine I was not happy! Its only a couple of tiny chips but of course I have run out of ASCP pure white and of course its a long way to get a new tin! Then there is the little corner thingamejig 2 shelf thing that I have to sand down and wax that's been sitting in my kitchen for months now, then there's the handcrafted ugly orange pin baby cot that I picked up a few months ago still sitting in the garage waiting, a couple of hall consoles and now I have just picked up a couple more chandeliers for the hall that will have to be taken apart washed and rewired! So you see you aren't the only one!

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