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Oxalic acid wood bleach

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Nordic Pine
Joined
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Cumbria & Kent
Anyone got tips and tricks for spot treating with wood bleach?

I’m rehabbing a utility room countertop with water stains near the sink. How long do you normally leave this stuff on before rinsing or neutralising? And which do you do? I want to treat only the dark spots, but concerned that if I’m not careful I’ll end up with the reverse of the original problem by creating a great big light patch. Do I need to sit and watch this work and neutralise as soon as possible?

I’m going to be sanding again after lightening so hopefully that will help with any blending of dark/light areas.

Or is spot-treating doomed to failure and the way forward is to apply to whole top?
 
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I watch a lot of furniture restoration videos by Thomas Johnson in Gorham, Maine. He uses oxalic acid to remove water stains from wood, and leaves it on all night. The next day he rinses the surface with clean water and lets it dry before going on to the next step or repeating the process for stubborn stains.

Here is a short video showing how he uses the oxalic acid.

 
I’m making progress. I’ve spot treated the big dark areas and got rid of them. I did try leaving it on overnight, but have not noticed any difference between just leaving it on for 30 mins. Wonder if that means my solution is really strong (it just came in a little bottle of liquid with a child proof cap that almost defeated me).

I will have to treat an entire area rather than just spot treating - I got pretty close to being able to transition from the treated area to the non treated area, but the eye is really sensitive to light/dark boundaries so it’s still noticeable.

Actually, I wonder if I can transition from the treated to untreated areas using progressive dilution of the solution. So far I just tried dabbing the same concentration strategically, but dilution should give me more control. I might try that first; the entire surface is quite large compared to the area that needs treatment and I don’t have a ton of this liquid. It’s a very small bottle.
 
I've never used oxalic acid, but in all of the Thomas Johnson videos, he treats the entire surface. He also lets the treated surface dry overnight before washing it off the next day.
 
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