The Framers Forum

Has any one got any good ideas on how to make new wood look like drift wood. Only I want to make some driftwood picture frames and mirrors. I live in Cornwall, but finding the right stuff on the beach and rivers is almost imposable.
I would need to start by distressing the wood with some sort of hard wire brush attached to a drill or angle grinder. It would need it to rotate rather than spin around, as I want to follow the grain.
Then I would have make it look greyish and weathered. Maybe I could start by bleaching it. Any one had any experience in this sort of thing ?

Hi Raymond. You're playing my tune there....

You are on the right track. Basically, just churn up the surface along the grain until it looks right. I usually clamp a length of moulding in two workmate-type stands and attack it. WEAR SAFETY SPECS. More extreme distressing use a milling bit in a Dremel at 45º to plough some deep grooves along the grain. Obeche and Pine are the fav woods.

I like to give the raw timber a coat of shellac before applying paint. The simplest recipe is just to paint the whole thing with white emulsion and sand it back a tad. Finish with wirewool and wax. Using wire wool will impart a subtle metalic grey cast on white paint.

Main thing is to experiment. Slap anything on and see if the cat licks it up.

I had a go at using a marine wood cleaner and brightener once, as I remember it works like a sort of bleach, the one I used is called net_trol deks rens, by Owatrol international corporation, oslo - don't know if it's still available

Some nice hints and tricks to try, nice one guy's. I didn't relies obeche and pine were the type of wood's to go for, now I do thanks. The milling tool sounds interesting. Thought I would get a result from here. Any more information would be welcome .

In my experience, making a driftwood finish is one of the hardest. It's not so much technically difficult as hard to be convincing. Beware of a curious blindness to the fact that the finish you're so pleased to have achieved, is indeed quite crap.
If you're up for the challenge, then take a lenght of new pine, sand it, bash it to hell and back, heavily round off all the sharp edges and even carve out a few extra along the length.
Now you need to have it fine sand-blasted. This will bring up the grain in sharp relief.
Next is a light BLACK water stain. Liberon do a small pot in their concentrate range. The wood should now have a dirty grey colour.
Finally, squeeze some artists ZINC WHITE oil colour into some plain furniture wax, and rub this into the wood and buff lightly when dry. If it still looks rubbish, try again and if not, go more beachcombing.

Ha Ha. The beach combing is starting to sound a lot easier. Thanks for the information, a lot to ponder on. Your probably right, there is no way to achieve an exact replica of natural driftwood. The trouble is finding it. I have looked at a lot of driftwood craft whilst living in Cornwall. I can always spot the man made version. Some people seem to of found the knack of making it look very convincing, if I can get close, I WILL BE Happy.

The term 'Driftwood' can be a bit of a moveable feast. Real driftwood tends to be quite twisty and have big splits in it - pat of it's charm. Generally it doesn't come in nice straight pieces suitable for frame-making. What I described is more akin to 'Barnwood'. Which is another subjective term.

As with a lot of frame finishes it's generally a case of a 'nod toward' rather than an accurate representation.


One idea that occurs: Make a flat frame and stain a dull grey colour. Then arrange/attach pieces of real driftwood in an artistic fashion. That way you have the integrity of solid wood and the driftwood acts purely as decoration. Fill in as much of the underlying surface as possible, but any gaps that allow sight of the 'new' frame beneath won't matter too much.

Do you have a friendly garage near you, that has a sand blasting cabinet. It may be helpful to talk to them and see if they will sand blast the front of the odd frame, or two for you.

Sometimes sandblasted, or wire brushed pine can become a bit fluffy. When I used to make my own driftwood, I used to burn off the fluffy bits with a hot air paint stripping gun, but you need a really hot one, otherwise it can take ages.

I prefer to buy ready prepared driftwood mouldings from normal moulding suppliers and if neccessary, (which is most of the time), handfinish them.

Many thanks for all the tips, I will try them all out, i'm sure to find something that works for me. You'r right of course Prospero, I need to use large flat, chunky pieces of wood to make a nice solid looking frame.
The idea of arranging interesting pieces of real driftwood in an artistic way on a frame or board is a good way to go about it, something to work on. I am thinking on the lines of routing coastal type shapes in to the frame, then filling the holes with small pieces of driftwood or various size doweling, it's in my mind, just need to make it reality. I'm going to need to buy a router to make the rabbit, ether that or glue a 1/4 inch moulding on the back. The sandblasting idea is worth pursuing, should give some nice effects. I take your point about the fluffing, & heat gun.
I have just ordered a wire brush from a specialised brush compony,it fixes to the end of a drill. They make brushes for wood distressing machines, the type of machine that are used to distress mouldings. They sound like they know what they are talking about, hoping for good things from them. Talking about mouldings, does any one know of any nice chunky ready made's that give that rustic distressed look.You mentioned that you use them Mark, any chance of sharing the suppliers and part numbers ?

Do the brush company have a website?

I often wire brush various bits of finished moulding. Stuff that is a yucky colour or already has a few dings in it. I did some recently which was a bilious orange wood. Quick going over with the wire brush took most of the finish off. Followed with a coat of shellac which consolidates the surface and seals the wood. Also gives a nice golden colour. On top of this I did a glaze of dark brown. When all is dry a good sanding + waxing. Not so much driftwood, more olde floorboard. Looks very attractive though.
Good way of using up odd bits. As long as it's a wood finish. Gessoed stuff needs leaving out in the open over the winter.

blowtorch the wood to give a charred surface - then use a stiff wire brush on a wheel in a drill - will give you a nice weathered look - repeat if you want it deeper etc.

Here is the link to the brush company. http://www.ibexindustrialbrushes.com

Thanks for the blow torch tip, another one to try.

Thanx for the link.

Here's a close-up pic of the heavily grooved wood look. I started off as a plank of 90mm wide PSE pine from Wickes.

http://petrbnsfineart.com/images/abframecorner_big.jpg

The liner was actually a finished moulding. Easy enough to hand-finish, just happened to have some old stock in the shed.

Gives a nice impression of something that has been out in the blazing desert sun for a while.

Impressive piece of abstract art. Indeed the frame does truly look ancient. Did it sell.

It was a framing job. The customer bought it in Aus and paid quite a fair chunk of cash for it. It's traditional aboriginal art done by a traditional aboriginal. But with oil paint on canvas.

Funny thing is, I made a sample chevron and it attracts a lot of interest. Just had a couple in with a huge HK oil which they want framing in the same style. And a lady came in last week and ordered the same frame for two more biggish HK oils. I'll be doing a lot of grooving next week.

Did you get those deep groves from using the dremel milling tool

Very impressed!

raymond wrote:Did you get those deep groves from using the dremel milling tool

In a word, yes.

http://www.thegildersstudio.co.uk/#!what-s-new/cjg9

then apply a white wash or lime wa.

Wire brush, drill, angle grinder, bleach, workmate, safety glasses, dremel, shellac, paint, sandpaper, wire wool, wax, marine wood cleaner, sand-blaster, stain, oil paint, blowtorch.....

...and all the time in the world!

I prefer just to buy driftwood mouldings and have the frame made in 10 minutes.

The new Lion Driftwood range has sold really well since I put it on the wall: https://www.lionpic.co.uk/product-searc ... =driftwood