Ok what did I do wrong???
I made a table top out of hard maple. After gluing it up I noticed there were some spots on one of the boards which didn’t appear to be part of the natural grain. So I did some reading and found that I could possibly bleach the spots out.
So I bought some wood bleach (oxalic acid), mixed it according to the directions and brushed it on the entire table (to have an even coat). I let it dry, then washed the top off a couple of times with just plain water. I again let it dry, then did a final washing with a baking soda water mix (according to the bleach directions). (this was all done out side in the sun) I then let it dry over night.
Then the next day I sanded down the raised grain and applied a dewaxed shellac. Before adding the shellac the wood had a slight reddish tint to it. As the day went on though it seemed to get even redder (if that’s a word).
The spots went away, but now I have “red” maple.
Was it the bleach, baking soda, sun, shellac?????
I love the new learning experiences I teach myself……
Replies
"I love the new learning experiences I teach myself...." I think it's going to be a new one for several of us, too. I'm looking forward to the solution for this mystery! Weird!
Interesting. Boxelder (a kind of maple) is known to develop bright reddish streaks in response to injury (the exact mechanism is not well understood). Boxelder isn't very common in the timber trade, as the trees are usually multi-trunked and don't get very big. But when it is sold, it's sometimes sold along with red and silver maples as "soft maple."
Could it be that you've discovered a way to stimulate the chemical process that leads to the red coloration?
-Steve
I did some more head scratching then tried some tests.I took two pieces of scrap maple that I had cut off of the end of table, put the oxalic acid on them, let one dry in the sun and one in the dark. I didn't rinse them off or use the baking soda afterwards. The one that dried in the sun turned red, the one in the dark did not.I think I found my problem. Not sure why it happened though.
Even more interesting. I'm going to have to try the experiment myself. Oxalic acid reacts with metals to form insoluble oxalates, many of which are colored.
-Steve
I did a bit more snooping around, and have located some information that says that a similar kind of discoloration occurs in sugar (hard) maple. Unfortunately, the paper is from 1955 and not available online, but I think I can get a hold of it through the university library here.
-Steve
Steve It was hard maple that I was using.I am now having fun using my belt sander to get the poly off. I thought the red was a temporary thing so I went ahead and finished it...dumb move.
What was the SPF rating of the oxalic acid? Hope the "sunburn" doesn't peel. ;-)
Edited 4/25/2009 3:55 pm by RalphBarker
Whoa!! Box Elder in my neck of the wood will exceed 18" trunk easily @ the 5' mark. Are you thinking Boxwood?Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Yes, it can grow that big, but that's not it's typical growth habit, at least not in the more southerly states.
The biggest boxelders that I've seen (in Oklahoma) were probably over 2' in diameter, but gnarly and twisted.
As the Wikipedia article states, "Acer negundo is a small, usually fast-growing and fairly short-lived tree that grows up to 10-25 m tall, with a trunk diameter of 30-50 cm, rarely up to 1 m diameter. It often has several trunks and can form impenetrable thickets."
-Steve
I have some soft maple that came frome a tree that was infected with a fungus .In fact growing plate fungus .The limb that was affected has a bright red swath travelling up the heart of the limb.I have roughed out a bowl from it as it struck me as so unusual.Maybe this is the cause.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled