Preserving Your Driftwood Piece Before Carving it into a Christmas Tree

The ocean and river water makes the driftwood smooth during its journey to off shores. These smooth driftwoods contribute in designing of multiple arts, crafts, furniture for your home and office, a decorative piece like the driftwood Christmas tree for your celebration, etc. Irrespective of what crafts or décor pieces you have planned to make with the driftwood before bringing it indoors, you must clean it, kill the insects and germs in it and preserve it. Suppose Christmas is ahead and you need to make your own Christmas tree with your driftwood. Before designing the tree from this piece of wood you need to go through some initial jobs to make the piece ready to be used for your tree.

Driftwood Cleaning

Outdoors get the wood rid of loose debris and dirt. The driftwood then has to be immersed for complete two days in a galvanized tub full of water. After this the driftwood still may contain some dirt, mud, etc. Thus you will have to get those muds, dirt, soft or damaged parts and decaying wood out of it with some tools like a chisel or soft-bristled brush, etc. After this step is completed the wood must be hosed off and placed in such a place where it would be easy to pour boiling water on it to ultimately kill the invisible germs or any left out bugs. You must repeat these steps until the driftwood is clean.

Bleach It

Bleaching is done to kill any remaining germs and lighten the dark portions of the wood to make the wood color even throughout the piece. The wood piece is soaked for half hour in a solution having one part of bleach added to nine parts of water in a shallow pan. Elongated periods of soaking will make the bleach penetrate into the wood. Use clean water to rinse it off and set it outside to add an insecticide to it.

Debug and Treat

Spray a mixture of concentrated insecticide and water on the wood piece, keeping it outside so that the bugs won’t make your wood piece in their home anymore. Let the small pieces under the sun outside for three to five days and the larger pieces for atleast fifteen days to get dried.

Trim and Sand

Cut and discard away the uneven and broken pieces attached to the wood. Sand the areas that are rough and where the branches were cut to make them smooth edges. Smoothing has already been done by the waters; you just need to sand the areas that water didn’t touch.

Condition and Stain

A conditioner has to be applied on it, letting it dry for fifteen minutes prior to the addition of stain with a paintbrush. Letting the stain to soak in the piece for darkness wipe off the excess and let it dry for half hour before applying a finish to it.

Protective Finish

The wood piece then must be coated with a furniture wax. This is a uniform mixture of beeswax and turpentine; or a clear matte, satin, semi gloss or high gloss protective finish. Several coats of this finish have to be applied with each coat being allowed to dry for six to eight hours in a warm area.

After these steps your wood piece is ready to be carved into your driftwood Christmas tree.

Bruce Hassan is known for his innovative decorative ideas. Grace your home with a beautiful driftwood side table.