Old oak beams - Lightening

[Sarah29]

Just seeing if anyone can offer any thoughts/experience with renovating/lightening old oak beams? I'm going to start the refurbishment of a 500 year old room that has old oak beams across the ceiling. Condition excellent....but over the years endless coats of varnish have gone on and they look rather dark and dreary....bit like an old pub!

 

I've read all about the various methods: Sandblasting, Bead blasting, Chemical treatment, Specialist treatments

 

Has anyone been down this road and can share a thought? The simplest looks like specialist surface treatment where you simply apply a cosmetic finish on top that on the face of it looks very good....there are a handful of companies doing it with endless supposed happy customers. If it's just a surface treatment, I'm happy to do it myself but need to find the right product. I'm all ears if anyone has any thoughts/knowledge on this.....thanks, Sarah

[joe90]

Personally I like oak to look like it should and was when new, I have seen various beams sand or bead blasted and I really like that look.

[Gone West]

19 minutes ago, Sarah29 said:

If it's just a surface treatment, I'm happy to do it myself but need to find the right product.

A friend converted a timber framed barn and cleaned all the timbers, mostly oak and elm, with oxalic acid. Worked well but took a long time.

[Temp]

Fresh cut/cleaned oak can look a bit white. If you just use Danish Oil it will darken to a honey colour but may continue to darken. Osmo Hardwax oil is probably a better bet. We have that on oak floors and looks great.

 

On the outside of our house I've opted for one coat of Danish and then several coats of Satin/Clear Osmo UV protection oil (different product to the Hardwax oil). This seems to have halted the darkening process so it remains a nice honey colour. Osmo UV protection Oil on its own keeps the oak a bit too white for my taste. They do make different colours but I've not tried them.

 

You can sometimes get small sample samples of Osmo products. Worth trying before you paint everything.

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> sand or bead blasted

 

+1

 

fairly messy but you can get contractors. I don't think oxalic will work over varnish - you can always try a small patch though.

[markc]

Don’t even think about coatings if you want it to look like wood. Sand blast is messy but works well, ice blasting is pretty mess free as only the removed paint/varnish is left but it’s going to take a lot longer. If the timber is pretty flat and hole free then the spinning (in a drill or grinder) needle gun wheels (stiff wires that hinge on pins around a disk) work well but are evil things better left to specialists.

[Sarah29]

Thanks all - Am liking the sound of mess free ice blasting for this project as there are quite a few layers of varnish over the many years to remove and the beams appear to have some good existing character too....shall make some calls and find out more. 

[Triassic]

Oxalic acid works a treat. Did ours and they came up very well.

 

if you are close to South Cumbria, I could give you some Oxalic power i have  left.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Triassic

[PeterW]

Dry Ice blasting is great as it leaves zero residue however it can be a bit pricey. Also, it is best left until you’ve nearly finished unless you can carefully wrap your new clean beams as removing plaster from newly blasted beams is a pain …