Cleaning up Old Oak

[Deimos]

I have a couple of old Oak beams the previous owner obviously cut out from somewhere and left in a barn. They are pretty long and around 8”x8” in section. Over time they have gone dirty and grey and I am thinking about tidying them up and putting them up in the house (as “cosmetic, not structural).

I have tried wire brushing them and it removed the dirt but colour stays greyish. I’ve tried teak oil on a test patch and that returns a bit of the “brown” colour. I didn’t really want to plane nor sand them (I prefer the old cut finish).

Does anybody have any suggestions about the best way to clean them up ?

Many thanks

Ian

[Opel Fruit<P><BR>Opel Fruit, Dept. 53<P>]

The way the French tend to do it is with a wire brush on an angle grinder, then use Bondex. This means you can have almost any shade of chene you want. I did our entire hangar like this and it took about 2 weeks - by the end I had lost the will to live.

[Deimos]

I was doing it with a hand wire brush (probably the reason for limited success). Also, do you brush along the grain or across the grain (or both). The Oak is pretty good (heartwood anyway) but even with a hand brush the soft parts of the grain were being removed (forming a “ridged effect” – which was not too bad but I was unsure if this is traditional ?)

From your experience, I’m doing an 8”x8” beam about 20ft long – how long would you expect it to take (couple ff hours, couple of days, etc.). I am not time limited but if it might take a couple of days I will know to persevere.

Many thanks

Ian

[Poolguy]

I suggest you power wash them: that is if your not in a department with water restrictions. If you do that you'll need a significant amount of power to make any impression.

Alternativly you could lightly sand blast them.

You need to remove the top 2-3mm whcih is oxidized timber to get back to freash timber. Then after its completely dry oil them to maintain colour and prevent insect attach and further oxidization.

Andrew

[Anton Redman]

We brushed ours by hand or with a relatively soft nylon brush then used 'Brywax' . there are French products which are every bit as good but at the time we were using all of our holidays working on the house rather than shopping. 'Les Anciens Ebeniste' in google.fr should pull up th list of products