Shopsmith Forums

I'm trying to make a set (or 2) of dominoes as a Christmas present. I have some maple that I got a couple years ago just for this project (yeah, it's been delayed that long).

While it is fairly "plain" maple, I'm thinking about maybe bleaching it to get it more white and reduce the appearance of the grain pattern.

I've done a little bit of research this morning, but have found limited and contradictory information. Does anyone have any experience with this? Using household laundry bleach?

Household bleach hasn't worked well for me. The drugstore (mine at least) carries oxalic acid powder. Works a lot better.

See my response to another thread in the beginner forum on removing stain from wood. Either will lighten the color of the wood. Holly wood is your best bet for white/light colored wood.

Gene Howe wrote:Household bleach hasn't worked well for me. The drugstore (mine at least) carries oxalic acid powder. Works a lot better.

It's the concentration level of chlorine in household bleach that makes it not as effective as the bleach they sell specifically for bleaching wood. An alternative is to go down to the pool store and get pool "shock" which is calcium hypochlorite (i.e. chlorine bleach) and dilute a portion of it into a small quantity of water.

Al

See the postings on bleaching in beginners discussions. Another suggestion for a light wood would be white ash I did a chess board and with the lightness of the wood and its grain it really popped visually. I finished it with 35 degree lacquer which gives it a very very faint yellow finish almost opaque.

Found this on the Wood Magazine site.
I've never tried it....seems like I'm always trying to get more color

Went back and looked at the info again.....could be a nasty brew. Lye and hydrogen peroxide. You can get high concentration peroxide at a pool supply (nasty stuff as well. Wear gloves!). It's used for non-chlorine pools. I used that system on a pool I had several years ago.

Using the two-part bleach system, or the acid stuff is a little more effort and expense than I wanted to put into it.

I did a test with a small piece of maple and household bleach. I brushed it on thick and let it stand, brushing more on as it soaked into the wood. I did this for about 10 minutes. Then I wiped it down with a damp cloth (I didn't bother "neutralizing" the bleach) and dried it off with a hair dryer then went over it lightly with some 220 grit sandpaper. As it dried, the color did indeed go away. But, the grain lines were still there. And that's what I was hoping to get rid of.

You may not eliminate the grain, It is wood after all. Sanding smooth and Paint may be your option. Even then you may still get some grain lines showing.