DIY Natural Wood Stain

For a few years now I have been making my own DIY Natural Wood Stain for some of my wood projects. When it comes to DIY there are tons of projects, tricks, and tips out there. It’s about finding the thing to use when you need to use it. I love dark stained wood. In most instances I am more than happy with some dark Minwax wood stain to use on my wood. However, there are times when I want a more weathered natural look. Enter DIY Natural Wood Stain.

To make this DIY stain you only need three things:

Apple Cider Vinegar

Steel Wool

Glass Container

Directions: Place steel wool into glass container, fill glass container with vinegar, place lid back on jar, and let it sit for at least 24 hours.

Rarely do I use a whole jar of natural wood stain in one project. So I end up leaving a jar constantly lying around. When one jar starts getting low I make up another one so I always have stain on hand.

The stain is completely liquid so I use foam brushes to apply it to the wood, but you can pretty much use any kind of brush. The foam brushes adsorb the liquid and then I just paint it on. If your wondering what the stain looks like, take a look at this scrap piece of wood. The dark side is where I applied the natural wood stain and the light side is the untreated side.

It seems that this stain works best on old or untreated wood. Treated wood seems to “block” out most of the staining power. I find it most useful when I’m working with salvaged wood. Either when I want to make it darker or when I need to plain the wood (to rid it of yuck) and I need to return some of the aged look to the wood. With treated wood it gives it sort of a grayish light stain. Which still makes the wood look older and aged a bit, just not maybe as dark as you may want.

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Here are some projects that I have completed with my DIY Natural Wood Stain……