The hard signs of wood antiquing

I promised in the article about antiquing techniques that I will come back to them in separate articles. I will start in what I consider to be a logical order withpreparation of the wood before applying finishing materials. This is the stage where the signs of time and long use are reproduced on the wood so that the object looks as much as possible like an authentic antique.

Preliminary operations

The wooden objects that can be antiqued are diverse: mobile, grinzi, floors, stairs, doors, window, panelling. To achieve the most authentic effect, it is best to check for signs of ageing on old wooden objects before starting work. Note how, where and why they appeared.

The first step in this process is white grinding. Even if you are going to "break" them, they still need to be prepared so that you can control the antiquing process as well as possible. Then identify the marks to be made and tools required.

The main ways to artificially age wood

Chamfering of edges and rounding of corners. Old furniture does not have straight corners. Even if it once did, they've faded over time. The same goes for the edges. Sanding is done with coarser sandpaper, by hand or with a sanding machine, then sand with finer sandpaper (280-320) so that the surface does not remain rough. For a pattern with more damaged edges, you can use a file or scraper to accentuate the effect. Chisels of various sizes can also be used. After all these operations, fine sanding is necessary. Everything should look as natural and authentic as possible.

Scratches, teșirile, hits, holesare very well highlighted in a later stage of berries and skates. These operations are done with a wide variety of tools, many of them improvised and as blunt as possible. Screws, bags with nuts or bolts, chains, hammers, even stones are used. Basically anything we think will leave the mark we want can be used.

The holes of cari are made with a makeshift tool, a wooden skewer and a few nails hammered into one end. If we look at an old piece of furniture that has been attacked by decay, we will notice that the holes are not evenly distributed over the entire surface of the piece of furniture, but are grouped together in several places. The same effect is achieved with the tool described above.

Structuring - the removal of late wood - is done with wire brushes, by hand or mechanicalfollowed by finer grinding. In factories, the operation is sometimes done with sandblasting guns. For this reason it is called sandblast. Fine sand eat from the softer early wood, bringing out the later wood.

Tocirea table or bench tops, even furniture, suggesting intensive and prolonged use, is done with chisels, brooms or with rhindea. The planks are more heavily planed in some areas, the final appearance is like that of very old and much used wooden kitchen worktops. The subsequent finishing will highlight the bumps that have appeared very nicely.

Wood with a very specific old look is also obtained by surface burning of wood with a lamp or burner, followed by brushing and sanding. It is a great way to bring out the natural grain and pattern of the wood.

These would be the ways of white antiquing wood. If I have forgotten any please let me know. Or if you have your own methods of ageing wood, it would be interesting to discuss them together. Until then please watch the video below. It shows some of the methods described above.