Eureka!I was about to give up on this, and I had already decided that it's probably impossible, but then it turned out that Vinegar and steel wool is the answer!
"How to turn Oak grey"...
A few days ago, I put some steel wool in a small jar of vinegar and let it sit for a day.
About 20 hrs later, I put some of the potion on the white Oak, but it didn't seem to do much...
But then, I looked at that same sample again today (about 48 hrs later iirc), and the effect was dramatic!
Here's what it looked like when I first saw it...
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... So I tried some more of the potion again, and this time the effect happened in just a few minutes (The potion is stronger now)..
This pic was immediately after applying it, "still wet"
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So I thinned the solution 50/50 with water, because the dark parts were way too dark...
...This is the other side of the same stick, after only a couple minutes, and I'm sure this sample will look much different tomorrow..
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One note about these pics... I cropped them all, but I think the denim background added a blue hue to all of them.
The camera is never as good as the naked eye... To my naked eye, the
pale grey color is not as "blue" as it looks.
But, that "dark blue" part has a deep, rich, purple hue that would be really cool on a different project. I'll bet it would look awesome in the right application