Bleaching Wood, 3 Ways

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This is part four of my series on refinishing our new bed. To start from the beginning, follow the list below.

Part 1 – Getting Started

Part 2 – Stripping Furniture In-Depth

Part 3 – My Perfected Stripping Process

Part 4 – Bleaching Wood 3 Ways | Tackling Color

Part 5 – Achieving a Natural, Raw Wood Finish

AND, I’ve got you covered in video format too. Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel where I show you this project from start to finish.

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End-Game

My goal all along with this piece was to achieve a very light, natural wood. In much of my research, I saw whitewashing or liming waxes used to go lighter. Although I do enjoy that look, it wasn’t the classic, more natural look I wanted for this. I was shooting for a natural wood without white.

So after I finished stripping and sanding, I had several issues with my piece, the first being stains.

Stains

As I mentioned in my first post, I had a LOT of stains on my footboard. They were primarily on the back, where I used the Citristrip and the steel wool. They would not sand out. Actually, you could sand them to a point where they seemed to disappear, but then they would just gradually re-darken over the course of a few minutes. It was frustrating and felt a bit like Groundhog Day before I realized what was happening. You can see the timelapse of them on the complete bed refinishing video here.

Color Issues

Overall Dark Wood

Dark Grain

Mismatched Woods

Bleaching

So since I wasn’t looking to use any type of paint or whitewashing to lighten the wood, I next looked into bleaching. But what type of bleach should I use? I saw others using various kinds. In the end, I found that this article does the best job at condensing what each bleach is used for. It also gave some helpful guidelines in terms of neutralizing the bleaches when you are using more than one.

Here is the nitty gritty on what each bleach does:

In the end, I would need all 3 bleaches for this project. Keep in mind that these bleaches are not interchangable. Over the course of the project, I found the uses listed in the article above to be in line with the results I achieved.

Supplies

Here’s a quick supply list to get you started.

Oxalic Acid

The first issue I tackled were the stains on the back of the footboard. Again, I’m not sure exactly what caused these. It could have been that the wood did not get to adequately dry out, or it could have been rust stains from steel wool. I feel like the steel wool is the less-likely answer as I used steel wool on the front of the footboard, and I didn’t have this issue there.

Below is a picture of the stains pre-sanding (left) and post sanding (right).

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I was unable to find oxalic acid in my local big box stores. I ended up purchasing this by Savogran.

I was sure to use my ventilator mask, gloves, and goggles. I also worked in my ventilated garage. I simply used hot tap water and mixed in some acid with a plastic spoon until it dissolved. It reminded me of Epsom Salt. I then scrubbed it into the problem spots. After letting it sit for a bit, I tripled rinsed it with clean water and let it dry.

And it worked!!! I was shocked, but it worked!

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Color Issues

Once I got the stain issue fixed up, I moved on to the color issues.

Which Bleach?

Again, I wanted to lighten the wood overall, lighten the grain, and get a better match on the woods. So I decided to test both the two part bleach and household bleach next to each other.

I purchased this two-part bleach from Zinsser as it was the only one I could find at a reasonable price or without the crazy hazmat shipping fees.

On the bottom left I used chlorine bleach, and everywhere else I used the two-part bleach. This board was naturally red as you can see. The chlorine bleach did nothing to take the red out or lighten the wood, but it did start getting into the darkness of the grain. On the right, the overall wood is starting to bleach and the colors appear to match, but the grain is still darker.

At this point, I had used all 3 bleaches, and the results followed right along with those in the article.

2-Part

Now that I knew how to get the results I was hoping for, I used the 2 Part (A/B) bleach on the entire bed frame. The process wasn’t difficult but it was a little frustrating at times. Next time I bleach, I would like to try to use a product that is mixed together first and then applied in 1 coat. Although you need to apply it quickly after mixing, I do think it would still be easier than the 2 application approach.

The first coat was to sit on the board for 15 minutes for hardwoods, but I found it would often start drying out before the 15 minutes. If it was too dry, the reaction would not occur or not occur well.

When I applied the second coat, it was difficult to see where I had already applied it vs where the wood was still simply wet from the first coat. This resulted in me missing an entire section! You can see below that it only worked in the little spots where some of the Part B splashed on to it.

Still, I was quite happy with the results. The wood was lightened and the redness was gone!

Once it dries, it leaves a white chalky residue that sands right off. After I finished sanding, I neutralized it with vinegar and water per the instructions.

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Chlorine Bleach

My last hope was to lighten some of this grain. It’s really difficult to pull stain out of grain, even after stripping and sanding. The bleach was quite easy to do.

I worked my way from the bottom up with a brush and regular (not the thicker, splashless variety) bleach. Working in the sun helped the coats go quickly. I did 3 applications. Once the 3rd application was dry, I neutralized it with 2 rinses of water.

Ready to Seal

Yay!!! I’m finally ready to seal. I’ll cover that in my last post in the series.

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