Fumed, or smoked oak, is oak wood flooring which has been treated to change its color. Fuming involves putting oak into an enclosed environment in which ammonia is introduced into the atmosphere. Fumed wood has been exposed to ammonia gas, the ammonia reacts with the natural tannins in the wood and brings out a darker color, usually a grayish-brown. It is a common mistake that fuming or smoking oak involves the application of the ammonia to the oak, but this is untrue. The color change comes from the wood’s reaction to the presence of ammonia in the atmosphere. Effectively what happens is that the ammonia causes the tannins in the wood to be brought to the surface. The closer the tannins are to the surface, the darker the wood will appear.
Oak is the preferred species for fuming/smoking because of its high tannin content. American White Oak is sometimes fumed/smoked, but it tends to react less intensely, has more variation. Because the intensity of the reaction to the ammonia depends on the tannin content of the wood, each board reacts a little bit differently from the next.The longer the wood is exposed to the ammonia, the darker it becomes. The results achieved from fuming or smoking will range from a rich brown, to almost black color.
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