# Aging Pressure Treated Lumber - How to?



## dodgeboy77 (Mar 18, 2009)

Hi All,

I would like to make a pressure treated piece of 4x4 match some older, grayish pieces. Does anyone know of a relatively easy way to do this? (I mean, other that letting it set out in the back yard for 10 years )

Thanks,
Bill


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## woody woodturner (Jul 9, 2010)

no idea bill sorry :no::no:


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## jrfuda (Jun 22, 2010)

What about going the other way, make the older stuff look a little newer?

About 4-years ago I bought a second-hand playscape for my kids that was about 3-5 years old, so the wood was already "aged". I modified it a bit using a few pieces of pressure treated lumber. After it was completely assembled I used some deck cleaner/brightener (pretty much high priced chlorine bleach in a pretty bottle) and cleaned the whole thing... Other than a little bit of a greenish tint, the new wood matched the old wood rather well, the green tint was barely noticeable. Later, when I some redwood sealer/stain on it, it became even less evident which pieces were new versus old.

Three days ago, I disassembled the whole thing (for the 3rd time - including tear down in the previous owner's yard - I'm in the military and move a lot, hopefully this will be the last one) and I could not tell the new stuff from the old stuff at all, of course, this was four years later... but I think, doing what I did originally and about 30 days (to give the new lumber a little time to age before you seal it), you'll have a pretty decent match, you can skip the sealer step and still have very little color difference.


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## dodgeboy77 (Mar 18, 2009)

This seems to be a tough request, as I didn't have a lot of response. I did some research in the finishing threads and came up with a process using lye, but I think that is a more hazardous process than I want to deal with.

One of my other hobbies is Geocaching. What I'm planning is to add a hollowed piece of 4x4 to a wood/steel foot bridge as a cache container. To be appropriately sneaky and make it blend I need it to be 'aged'.

I think my solution will be to trash pick an old 4x4 if I can find where someone had rebuilt a deck or some such thing.

Bill


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