Fuming Ash Wood with Ammonia - anyone?

[Missing Link]

I have been debating to try fuming a telecaster raw ash wood body with some ammonia to see if I can darken the wood and pop the grain then add a wipe on clear finish.
Wondering if any of you folks would share a picture or to of what you achieved.


Cheers

​

 

[Nogoodnamesleft]

Haven't seen ash, but Fine Woodworking did an article about twenty years ago that I recall on fuming wood - I think it was oak. Completely different animal. Are you more interested in the technique or pictures of before and after with ash?

 

[archetype]

I've fumed small pieces of oak to use in repairing arts and crafts furniture. It's trial and error to get the desired color and every piece of wood has a mind of its own.

You could get an ash scrap and put it up on supports in one of those lidded plastic tubs. Have a dish of household ammonia below it, put on the lid, and check it periodically.

A picture was readily findable, but should be used only as a general idea. Your piece of ash will be unique. In the picture, the ash is darker, but the color doesn't strike me as attractive. There may or may not have been stain or contrasting filler used to make the grain pop. You won't get that grain on a guitar body.

Fumed ash HLD, 72#/28″ (No. 52) – Stonehill Primitive Bows

 

[oregomike]

I have been debating to try fuming a telecaster raw ash wood body with some ammonia to see if I can darken the wood and pop the grain then add a wipe on clear finish.
Wondering if any of you folks would share a picture or to of what you achieved.


Cheers

​

Check out the Japanese art of Shou-Sugi Ban (Yakisugi) method. Not the same, but pretty cool nonetheless.

 

[El Tele Lobo]

Check out the Japanese art of Shou-Sugi Ban (Yakisugi) method. Not the same, but pretty cool nonetheless.

Just wondering, for those who have used it. I’ve heard a few people on here talk about a product called Z Poxy. Is this basically a hardner and resin mixture in one? Or do you need to mix it down with something?

 

[oregomike]

Just wondering, for those who have used it. I’ve heard a few people on here talk about a product called Z Poxy. Is this basically a hardner and resin mixture in one? Or do you need to mix it down with something?

He explains it here.

 

[gb Custom Shop]

Just wondering, for those who have used it. I’ve heard a few people on here talk about a product called Z Poxy. Is this basically a hardner and resin mixture in one? Or do you need to mix it down with something?

Z-poxy is a 2 part epoxy - hardener and resin are in 2 separate bottles, which you mix in equal proportions. It is fairly thin to begin with, but can be thinned further with DA. It's good stuff, especially for popping grain figure and filling porous woods.

There's a wealth of information on this forum discussing it's applications.
As for YouTube resources on z-poxy, Chris at Highline guitars has posted a number of videos, as well as Chris from driftwood guitars. Both provide excellent information.

 

[Missing Link]

I have been popping the grain on ash guitars for some time now in different manners, flame, paint, dyes and so on, but I have never tried the fuming method yet.
I do have a a few scraps of Ash wood under the cover with some household ammonia witch is pretty week stuff but it may do some change in a few weeks.
One mentioned that ash gets dark, I am looking for that dark brown shade if possible like oak produces.

Cheers

 

[old wrench]

I think it's a worthy experiment

I've seen some beautiful examples of fumed oak - I believe there is a reaction that takes place with the tannic acid in the oak wood - I'm not sure how it would work with ash, but I'd love to see the results.

I work with ash quite a bit and I think it's character and graining go together perfect with the Tele design.

I have experimented with the vinegar and steel wool solution on ash, but I wasn't too impressed with the results - the coloring didn't appeal to me.

It could be that the ash body I treated with the vinegar/steel wool solution didn't color up the way I had hoped was because the blank was roasted ash - maybe an un-roasted ash body would have a better color?

I have a lot of ash drop-offs from building bodies - maybe it's time for some further experiments for me too.

Good Luck!

.

 

[old wrench]

I have been popping the grain on ash guitars for some time now in different manners, flame, paint, dyes and so on, but I have never tried the fuming method yet.
I do have a a few scraps of Ash wood under the cover with some household ammonia witch is pretty week stuff but it may do some change in a few weeks.
One mentioned that ash gets dark, I am looking for that dark brown shade if possible like oak produces.

Cheers

You are right about household ammonia being a relatively weak solution - iirc, it's somewhere around a 5% solution.

Full-strength ammonia is incredibly nasty and dangerous stuff - for a couple of years I did construction work on a petro-chemical plant that processed natural gas and converted it into urea (ammonium nitrate - the truck-bomb stuff), among other chemical products - one of the by-products of the process was pure ammonia - nasty, dangerous stuff

.

 

[edvard]

According to Wikipedia, ammonia fuming works well on Oak because of its natural high tannin content, but notes that you can do similar to woods lacking tannins by first brushing the pieces with Tannic Acid.
It also mentions that the ammoniuum hydroxide concentrate has to be fairly high; 26-30%, which doesn't sound any kind of pleasant.

Ammonia fuming - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Maguchi]

I have been debating to try fuming a telecaster raw ash wood body with some ammonia to see if I can darken the wood and pop the grain then add a wipe on clear finish.
Wondering if any of you folks would share a picture or to of what you achieved.


Cheers

​

Don't know what it would do to the appearance of the wood, but it would probly get rid of any borer beetles hanging around in there.

 

[Missing Link]

I believe the tannin content is very low in the Ash wood so I not going to expect mush of a change fast and the ammonia being used is of household standard so I will be going today to stop in at the local hardware store to find a slightly more potent bottle to use.
I think its maybe worth the trail as ash wood does hold some very nice pleasant grain lines and is not as heavy as oak.
Last year I found an old fish tank at a yard sale just the right size for a guitar body to be inserted so I did an experiment were I sat the body in the tank covered the top drilled a few vent holes and left it in the direct sun for about a month and that was well worth the effort as it popped the grain on the ash and darkened the wood nicely but it took a month, to long.

Cheers