Timber Framers Guild Forums General General Forum Questions Finishes for Timbers > Black or close to it

Any suggestions? Got some ideas and testing to do, but I thought I ask around with this nice tool.

Green Cypress. Gonna dry at least 3/16ths from surface while working. Woodmizer Rough. Semi-transparent. Exterior (covered)

Hello,

From what I can make of all those sentence fragments and the subject heading, there is only one right answer - Pine tar, handled and applied correctly.

Greetings,
Don Wagstaff

potassium permanganate, an oxidizer, might work on cypress. i've used it on oak, pine, and fir, to good affect.

mix with water, wear rubber gloves, brush on, wipe off if needed, or let it sit. the percentage of crystals to water will set its strength.

oak and fir can go a deep deep brown.
oak especially so, as the tannins react.

i've never taken anything to black.
every wood reacts differently.

I second Don's advice, pine tar or some wood tar at any rate.

This next week, me and my brothers are going to be making tar in a Scandinavian style pit kiln, but we have no pine locally, so we'll be making hardwood tar -walnut, to be precise, due to it's very high tannin content.

try ebonizing with vinegar and steel solution. High in tannins woods come out as black as it gets, not sure about cypres.

http://lumberjocks.com/Allison/blog/5831

Shou sugi ban. Sugi being cedar but I am sure that cypress will work. Traditionally used for siding, but is could be interesting to try on timbers.

http://remodelista.com/posts/outdoors-shou-sugi-ban-wood-siding

Thanks everyone! I'll report when I have some results.

Bub, thats some serious business! very interesting.