Baking Soda Wood Stain

While you may be familiar with the dye-based stains available at hardware stores, you may not be aware of chemical stains. Instead of depositing pigments on the wood, these stains create colour with a chemical reaction within the wood. Woods contains tannins and some species have more tannin than others. The more tannin the wood contains, the greater the colour change. The colour change varies a lot depending on the concentration of the mixture and how much has been applied onto the wood.

Here are the materials you need:

• Baking soda
• Paper towel
• Water
• Container
• Spoon or stirring stick

I dissolved 1 part baking soda in 3 parts water. You can find what works best for the wood species that you are staining.Woods that are lighter in colour may need a more concentrated baking soda solution.

Before staining, you may want to sand the surface with 120 grit sandpaper to increase the surface area of the wood.

Using a folded paper towel, dip it into the solution and brush it onto the wood. A paint brush or foam brush can also be used. Allow the wood to dry.

Repeat this process until you get the desired effect.

It just took 20 minutes to stain the workpiece. The wood now looks darker and aged.

Areas of the wood which absorbed more of the baking soda solution such as pores on the face and the end grain had a greater change in colour. This is a quick and easy way to quickly give the wood a weathered look.