A heat gun can make an awesome finish on wood, but you can do it in lots of different ways. Here's five different wood finishes with a heat gun!
Heat guns are a really unique and really inexpensive tool to add to your DIY arsenal. We got this Wagner Heat Gun last month and have been having a blast with it!
I have been fascinated by all of the things that a heat gun can do, and really have been having fun playing with it. So, today I wanted to share with you 5 DIY wood finishes using a heat gun. These are all just pieces of normal pine scrap wood.
Be sure to check out this DIY wood burned stool!
5 DIY Wood Finishes Using a Heat Gun
Here's five different types of ways you can use a heat gun to char wood!
Painted Wood
Heat guns are actually really handy in removing paint, so I was interested to see what it would do to a piece of pre-painted (dry) pine. The heat gun caused the paint the slightly brown and bubble, which I think could be a really cool faux aged finish. Warning: be sure to wear a face mask when trying this one, it gets stinky.
Stained Wood
The stained pine took the burn a lot faster than the unstained wood. It actually added a nice bit of contrast to the stain and helped to bring out the grain a lot.
Untreated Wood - Light Burn
This was just regular pine that I lightly burned. You have to keep the heat gun moving or it has a tendency to get splotchy.
Untreated Wood - Dark Char
To get a darker char, I moved the heat gun much slower as I heated the wood. I really love the char finish and think that this could be epic on a large piece. Imagine a whole garden bed done this way. Stunning!
Untreated Wood - Wet
This was kind of random, but cool. I completely wetted the wood (away from the electric heat gun!) The dark burn color spread a lot more evenly across the wood and got a much smoother finish than the dry wood. I really love this tip! Be really, really careful that you don't mix electricity and water with this one!
Here is a video showing each of the finishes:
Have you ever used a heat gun before? What for?
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Hello, I'm Morgan, half of the creative force behind CharlestonCrafted.com! With a passion for DIY that dates back to 2012, I've transformed three homes and now I'm dedicated to helping others craft their dream spaces. Let's turn your house into a home together!
[…] darken. You can also add stain afterwards to really complete the look. Check out this article from Charleston Crafted to see some examples of finishes you can apply. For the advanced user, you can even use ammonium […]