We have a home under construction and the walls are knotty pine. Our goal was to have deep rich pine walls and the architect said they would use linseed oil and the walls which are now very light would darken quickly He said within three years we would have the mellow rich wood look we want. Now the painter tells us that they used an acrylic sealer on the walls and that it will take years for the wood to change color. The architect tells us the acrylic won't matter and they will still darken rapidly. Who is right?
finish new knotty pine paneling for rapid darkening
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In the most recent issue of FWW, they have an article on finishing pine. One of the things that they mention is to not finish a Pine piece right away. That after a few weeks exposure to the air (oxidation I would assume) the Pine will take on a darker golden color. I would think that an acrylic sealer would slow or eliminate that oxidation process much greater than a BLO finish. Plus the BLO would impart a amber color itself also.
According to this article the best finish for Pine is shellac, use amber if you want to add a darker hue to it. Once it's sealed with the shellac you can then use stains and glazing to add more character to it. It's a good article, and the results on the Pine piece shown are really nice.
Dave
According to this article the best finish for Pine is shellac, use amber if you want to add a darker hue to it. Once it's sealed with the shellac you can then use stains and glazing to add more character to it. It's a good article, and the results on the Pine piece shown are really nice.
Dave
I agree with what DaveO said about letting the pine oxidize for a while but if you can't wait you can use dewaxed dark garnet shellac and apply that. It will approximate the color you see in very old knotty pine if you apply multiple coats.
A while back I was helping a friend remodel his mother's house and when we redid the den we had to add two pieces of knotty pine to finish a wall. We were able to find the tongue and groove boards in the same molding pattern but of course they were very blond. After some experimentation and cleaning of the 35 year old pine we applied the dark garnet shellac to the new work and it was a pretty good match. Of course you might not want your wood that dark.
Hope this helps...
A while back I was helping a friend remodel his mother's house and when we redid the den we had to add two pieces of knotty pine to finish a wall. We were able to find the tongue and groove boards in the same molding pattern but of course they were very blond. After some experimentation and cleaning of the 35 year old pine we applied the dark garnet shellac to the new work and it was a pretty good match. Of course you might not want your wood that dark.
Hope this helps...
I put up knotty pine in my porch back up North and had to seal it due to how mist and fog would have got to the wood. I stained it with "Puritan Pine" figuring that this would darken it up a bit (and it did) to make it look older before applying "regular-ole" polyurethane to it.
It turned out that the wood continued to darken some even after the application of the poly. I looked at some pics I had taken of the porch when I first completed it and compared them with the way that the porch looked just before we moved (three years later) and the tone had darkened and mellowed considerably. I guess the bottom line here is that you will probably continue to get some aging and darkening of the wood regardless, so I wouldn't write it off.
It turned out that the wood continued to darken some even after the application of the poly. I looked at some pics I had taken of the porch when I first completed it and compared them with the way that the porch looked just before we moved (three years later) and the tone had darkened and mellowed considerably. I guess the bottom line here is that you will probably continue to get some aging and darkening of the wood regardless, so I wouldn't write it off.
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