Ammonia fuming

Ammonia fuming is a wood finishing process that darkens wood and brings out the grain pattern. It consists of exposing the wood to fumes from a strong aqueous solution of ammonium hydroxide which reacts with the tannins in the wood. The process works best on white oak because of the high tannin content of this wood. Fumed oak is also called smoked oak. Other species may also be fumed but usually will not darken as much as white oak. The introduction of the process is usually associated with the American furniture maker Gustav Stickley at the beginning of the twentieth century, but fuming was certainly known in Europe some time before this.