The Problem: episode 1, part 14 (The Fumed Finished)

After stuffing myself silly over the Thanksgiving holiday I managed to get back to work.

Working on the final touches with putting the leg and rail together.  Here is the wedge that holds everything together.

It turned out more sturdy than I had hoped.  The thing is as sturdy as a rock.  If I wasn't using it as a computer desk I could easily use it as a workbench.

I went old school with the finish on this one.  Fuming the white oak with ammonia.  This technique gives the oak a nice deep burnt umber color. 

To do this I had to build an air tight box to fit all of the pieces of my leg and rail in.  I made this one out of cheap 1"x 2"s and 2mil plastic.

All of the pieces are held apart by screwing them into some scrap wood.  Then I poured the ammonia into a bowl.

And then covered the top and taped down all of the edges in order to make it as air tight as possible.

Then I waited about 24 hours.

It's hard to tell how much the color of the wood changed in this lighting.  It's my porch light because I took all of these pics at night.  Since it's winter time here in Colorado that means I took the pics after 5:00PM.

Before the fuming the aluminum rod was not that noticeable.  So you can see the wood has darkened quite a bit.  The color will pop as soon as I put some oil on it.  I can't wait but if I bring it in the apartment right now I will have the whole place smelling of ammonia and that's not good.  I have to keep the wife and dog happy so I will wait until tomorrow.