Any magic solutions for sun bleaching?

[Beau]

I made some brown oak dining chairs many years ago and I have just had a call from the client saying that the chair that sits in the window is very pale. I did see them some years ago and it was showing signs of bleaching then. Other than sanding them back is there any other way to reverse the bleaching? They are just finished with Danish oil

Thanks

 

[MikeG.]

How about suggesting a rotation? Like every 6 months, every chair moves one place to the right. Seriously, I doubt anything else is going to work.

 

[Beau]

How about suggesting a rotation? Like every 6 months, every chair moves one place to the right. Seriously, I doubt anything else is going to work.

Snag is he likes the deep chocolaty colour the other chairs have gone and does not want them all equally bleached. Also it's the carver with arms so cant just swap them around. I did say sanding back was probably the only option but I would see if there were any alternatives but suspecting there isn't.

 

[custard]

I've run dozens of tests looking for a solution to this problem,

The above photo shows four timbers, clockwise from the top left are Oak, Sycamore, Black Walnut, and American Cherry. The left hand side of each board is unfinished, the right hand side is finished with a high quality yacht varnish that contains a high level of very expensive UV filters. The top half shows what a few months in a south facing window can do, the bottom half was masked off.

There are no silver bullet solutions (at least none that I've found), the best I can say is as follows,

-Pick the right timber for sunny environments like south facing rooms or conservatories. Most fruitwoods like Cherry hold up to sunlight well, as does Laburnum. These actually darken and patinate in moderate sunlight. The worst timber is probably Black Walnut which fades to a beige mud colour in next to no time. Brown Oak is actually pretty resistant to fading as timbers go!

-Morrells are working on a finish that offers some hope, but it's very expensive and spray only, plus it'll only delay fading rather than prevent it.

-Bog Oak doesn't fade, and neither do timbers that have been given a scorched finish.

-There are some relatively new stains called metallised acid stains, examples are TransTint and Colortone (available from the luthier supply company StuMac). I've tested TransTint quite extensively. It's genuinely excellent, far more light fast and fade resistant than any other stain. This will get you at least several years of fade resistance, but not several decades.

-Pigments can offer more fade resistance than stains, but of course they're essentially paint, so will obscure grain.

-One of the ironies is that UV filters are themselves broken down by sunlight, so they're fine for say yacht varnish that's intended to be scraped and replaced every few years, but they're not in themselves a permanent solution.

The Victorians thought sunshine was the enemy so drew their heavy velvet drapes. We want our modern homes to be washed in daylight, I guess we just have to get used to the inevitable consequence of bleached and faded surfaces.

 

[dzj]

Maybe re-applying coloured/tinted Danish Oil might cajole it back to a previous tone.
I'm only guessing, though.
Perhaps there is a forum on the internet dedicated to furniture restoration? I imagine they deal
with such things on a regular basis.

 

[custard]

Maybe re-applying coloured/tinted Danish Oil might cajole it back to a previous tone.
I'm only guessing, though.

It's an interesting idea. I tried something similar with Osmo Raw Oil, which uses finely ground pigment to neutralise the yellowing effects of oil finishes on pale timbers.

Here was a finish test sample masked off against sunlight with a sheet of MDF. The timber is Sycamore, and the pigmented Osmo Raw (type number 3044) is the third finish from the left.

After a few weeks in a south facing window the MDF was removed and this is the result,

The masked off section is on the right, the left shows the effects of sunlight. In this case the pigment had no effect against the pale Sycamore darkening in sunlight. I appreciate the OP is more interested in the bleaching effects of sunlight on darker timber, but the real lesson here is that small levels of pigment aren't able to prevent UV light reaching the underlying timber.

 

[Beau]

Thanks guys.

I will pass on refinishing them as not really my line of work anymore but will just stick with my original advise to him. Also it a long way from here and chairs are a pain to transport in quantity. (set of 10)