Oak discoloring
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Welcome! / Forums / General Woodworking Discussions / Finishing / Oak discoloring
OK – so I used a brush to paint water on a project (quarter sawn white oak) in preparation to finish. I noticed this morning what appears to be staining in the pores of the wood of a bluish hue. I used tap water. Did I ruin my piece?
No – I discovered it this morning before heading out to work – I was curious if anyone else has ever experienced the same issue?
It could have been iron in the water interacting with tannins in the wood. It happens, especially if you have iron pipes or the city hasn’t flushed their lines all summer.
If it won’t come out with sanding or scraping, your recourse is oxalic acid, which will remove the stain but bleach the wood.
You will then have to stain the wood. Use distilled water next time or run the water a while to flush the lines.
Are you sure this is really a problem? Can you reproduce it on some scrap and use that for a test? The test is to apply the color you want to apply, just ignoring the staining. Or, if you do not plan to dye or stain, then just apply whatever finish you want. Even without dye or stain, many finishes change the color slightly. The end result has a good chance of looking perfectly fine.
Lemon juice removes stains from hands after working with oak. I’ve never tried it on the oak itself, though.
Thanks for the input guys – I sanded the spots with a more aggressive grit and it seemed to work. I will definitely use distilled water in the future.