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| The Lost Art of Fuming Wood for Color |
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 We are in an age when coloring woods simply means using one of the fine staining products that are readily available. Most of these come with instructions on usage and safety. But there is another way to color wood, one that mother nature uses, oxidization. Mother nature does it naturally with oxygen, but we don't have decades to wait, so we can speed up the process with ammonia. The benefit of fuming wood is that the coloring penetrates the wood up to an eighth of an inch deep for a rich permanent coloration. The disadvantage is that different hues and tones are difficult to control because of differing temperatures, wood types and length of fuming time. To fume wood you only need four ingredients, a wooden project to color, some ammonia, a plastic or glass (NOT metal) container (with a lid) for the ammonia, and plastic to build a tent, in which to fume the wood. Household ammonia is not strong enough at only 5% strength, you will need industrial strength ammonia (25% - 30% strength), called ammonium hydroxide, which you can often find at blueprint / drafting supply stores. It is relatively inexpensive and will last a long long time. Safety First, it is absolutely imperative that you use good quality eye protection AND you MUST use a high quality respirator, not simply a dust mask.It is important to take your time with this project and to know what you are doing as the ammonia is very powerful and corrosive so you need to handle with extreme caution. Ammonia fumes can cause skin irritation and burns, inhaling it is unpleasant to deadly and getting any in your eyes, even the fumes is painful to blinding.
It is recommended that you use good quality rubber gloves, respirator rated for ammonia and eye protection ... in this case it is recommended that you use swimming goggles or a mask as the fumes will not penetrate. The first thing to do is to determine which project you want to color. Once you have selected a project you will need to make a simple tent (square is OK) out of wood and clear plastic, large enough to hold your project. The tent should be wind resistant so that the ammonia will be contained within it. Since fuming actually penetrates the wood up to about an eighth of an inch, it is best to fume before you glue as fuming will not penetrate a glue or filler spot. The type of wood is not so important, but remember the ammonia is reacting with the tannin in the wood, so woods with more tannin might be a better choice (like oak). Set up you piece to be fumed inside the tent, which should be fairly well sealed, and make sure it is positioned so that air can flow freely all around the places you want to fume. Place a small plastic container of ammonia inside the tent, seal the opening and let it sit for up to 24 hours. When the wood has colored to the depth you want, take your wooden piece out of the fuming tent and allow it "off gas" for another 24 hours before bringing it indoors. And there you have it ... a fumed project ... just like the Gustav Stickley generation used to do. wooworkweb 
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