That good old silvery grey of weathered wood is one of the most basic colors when building old wooden buildings.
I have just aquired my first bottles of Silverwood stain, and it is every bit as good as people say it is.
In my opinion, the more coats you add, the more correct the color gets. But sometimes you want a almost white tone of silvery grey.
Like in this example:

Since the untreated basswood has a distinct yellow tone, it is difficult to achive good, light silvery tones.
It recently struck met that maybe the thing is to bleach the wood before you stain it?
Searching the web I found some recipes for bleaching wood that looked promising. To make a medium length story short, I ended up using 35% hydrogen peroxide combined with a 35% solution of ammonia.
First, be warned that we are speaking industrial strength chemicals here, and not something you would hand out in primary schools during craft lessons.
Wear heavy duty rubber gloves, protective *closefitting* goggles (those ammonia fumes *really* stings the eyes!).
Work in a well-ventilated area with access to lots of fresh water. Work on a surfce than can be washed down with lots of water.
Spills will stain clothes.
Read the datasheets before starting!
Ok, on with the process.
Start by painting the raw wood with the hydrogen peroxide solution. Be generous, but you dont have to flood it. Wait for the wood to absorb most of it before you stain it with the ammonia solution.
Decant a small amount of ammonia in a glass container and recap the ammonia bottle. You don´t want to transfer small amounts of peroxide back into the ammonia bottle. Strange chemical reactions might otherwise happen.
First after applying the ammonia the bleaching will start. It starts to work almost immediately. I leave it for a couple of hours before washing the wood with lots of water. Then you just leave the wood to dry.
In this picture you can compare some 0-scale Kappler 1X6 in both its bleached and raw states:

If you use only peroxide, no bleaching takes place.
Alone, ammonia hardly leaves a trace.
The ammonia acts as an activator for the peroxide.
The bleached wood is an excellent starting point for your favorite staining recipes, and here the bleached wood har received one wiping of silverwood:

Regards, Hauk
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Remembrance of Trains Past
http://trainspast.wordpress.com/