How to Weather Wood

Have you ever wondered how to weather wood? Sometimes a project calls for a weathered look that just cannot be created with new wood and conventional finishing products because our typical finishing approaches render a look that is, well, just too new. Sure, you can sometimes find weathered wood for sale that has been salvaged from an old barn, but that presents a couple major challenges.

First, have you priced this stuff lately? It can cost several times as much as new material, making it cost prohibitive for many of us. Secondly, what happens when you glue up panels and have to plane or sand the edge joints flush so that it looks like a single board? Yep, it removes most or all the weathered appearance, leaving you with new looking stock that doesn’t match the rest of the project. The same thing holds true with the ends of the boards that are cut during the creation of the project.

Recently George faced this dilemma on a project, and he explored how to weather wood so that he could build his project using new wood, but make it look like wood that had been sitting outside for years. He found a great water based product for this which is featured in the video. Working with the product to achieve the aging effect is straightforward;

Brush it on. Apply it with a brush, just like you would with many common finishing products. No need to overwork it; just let it soak in.

Let it sit and watch the magic show. Within 30-60 minutes you’ll see the wood age as though it had been sitting outside exposed to the elements for 100 years. The product is readily available through Amazon and other retailers.

After you’ve learned how to weather wood, perhaps you will want to explore some other wood finishing tips.