Contributed by Gary Burns
The two pieces I chose to sandblast are shown below, the one on the left is Acacia, on the right is Oak. You’ll want an open grain type wood for sandblasting to be effective.
These pieces were taped off across the bottom and top using masking tape so the inside and bottom were not sandblasted. I wanted those areas to remain smooth.
Each piece was sandblasted to lightly remove some of the summer growth wood, the wider distance between rings. Winter rings are much narrower. After the event, I took them home to completely seal the wood inside and out using two coats of sanding sealer .
The inside and bottom were stained with a translucent walnut stain to darken it up a little as Acacia and Oak are a whitish tone. When dry, the outsides were stained with homemade alcohol dyes using multiple colours to take on an earth tone.
Because the wood was sealed twice, the walnut stain prevented bleed through to the outside especially on the end grain areas, and also prevented the alcohol dyes from bleeding through to the inside or bottom. You might think that, by sealing especially with two coats, the walnut and alcohol dyes would not penetrate the wood. It still does but not enough to bleed through to the other side. This is especially important if your wall thickness is in the 1/4” thickness range.
To accent the sandblasted areas (the areas where the summer wood was slightly removed) I used a product called Liming wax. This filled the low areas, and then I scrubbed like crazy to remove the liming wax from the total surface, only leaving it in the lower areas.
This was a really fun project and well worth the trip with the guild to Langley U-Blast.
For more information on wood species, go to https://wood-database.com.