Staining Cherry with oven cleaner.

[Paul Girouard]

Anyone ever try it?

I inadvertently, while cleaning some table saw blades, sprayed some oven cleaner onto some PS Red Oak ply. It gave it a green-ish cast, like a old Oriental Teak stain I can no longer find. So I thought "What the heck, I'll spray some on some scrape Cherry ". And man it turned it a very nice color , sort of a fast aging / patina deal on the Cherry.



So left to right , Ribbon grained Khaya, Benited ( the whole stick) first , then 1/2 just oiled with Maloofs poly / oil, the other 1/2 sprayed with oven cleaner then oiled.

Next the two Cherry samples again, Benited , one sprayed with oven cleaner and oiled ,the other piece Benited and oiled .

Then the Red Oak same deal.

It has to be some chemical in the oven cleaner, exactly which one I don't know.

[Jim Becker]

The over cleaner probably contains lye...which some folks have used to "age" or color wood including cherry. If you like this technique, you're probably better off using something you know is pure and predictable, rather than a consumer product that likely has a lot of "extra stuff" added.

[Scott Loven]

I like it, did you do anything to neutralize it at all? I wish I had "scrap" wood that looked that good by the way!

Scott

[Paul Girouard]

No ingredients on the can , which seems odd , just the normal don't drink the stuff / spray it in your eyes , etc.

No I did not do any thing to neutralize it, sprayed on wiped off , no gloves , let air "dry" a few minutes , wiped on oil. I'm a carpenter not a scientist.

They are all in the shop window to get some UV / sun light we'll see what they look like in a week.

[Mike Henderson]

The over cleaner probably contains lye...which some folks have used to "age" or color wood including cherry. If you like this technique, you're probably better off using something you know is pure and predictable, rather than a consumer product that likely has a lot of "extra stuff" added.

Jim's right - it probably contains lye, which is an age old way of coloring cherry. Lye is a base so it would be best to wash it after with a solution of water and vinegar since vinegar is a weak acid.

But Jim is also right that you should use pure lye instead of oven cleaner. You don't know what else oven cleaner contains and some of the ingredients may not be good in the long term. You can generally find lye at the hardware store in the drain cleaner section.

Mike