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Coloring Finishing And Painting Wood
The body material or solid content of these early metallacquers consisted largely of pyroxylin, or high-viscosity nitrocellulose of a non-explosive form. When large amounts of nitrocellulose were contained in the lacquer it became viscous and heavy and could not be spread evenly over a surface; consequently much reducer or thinner was added, and the film was so thin that it was often necessary to apply as many as 15 to 20 coats.
Since the World War, chemists have discovered that various varnish-resins can be dissolved in solvents and incorporated in low-viscosity nitrocellulose mixtures, and this discovery brought to the market a new type of finishingmaterial for automobiles and furniture, especially, which we now call lacquer. Varnish-resins add greatly to the body or thickness of the film. At the present time in the United States the term lacquer-finish, when used in connection with automobiles and furniture, usually refers to this new type of finish made from nitrocellulose and varnish-gums with various other substances in a highly complex mixture. These new nitrocellulose lacquers which include resins in their composition are somewhat similar to varnish in the thickness of the films that can be obtained from them. Relatively few coats of our latest nitrocellulose-resin type of lacquer are required, on account of the large amount of solid material contained in the mixture and the thickness of each layer or film after it is dried on a surface.
Recently another type of quick-drying finish called "varnish-lacquer" is said to have been produced.3 This lacquer dries more slowly than the ordinary nitrocellulose compounds previously used, but contains a specially-treated varnish containing vegetable oils which act as ultra-violetray filters for sunlight, and add a plasticity similar to that of oil-varnishes. Little is known about this new lacquer, but it is reported to show up well in tests in outdoor trials of clear varnish-lacquer on automobiles over colored lacquer.
The term lacquer has gradually come to refer to a very quick-drying varnish-like finish which dries to great hardness. The term itself does not positively indicate any special composition. In the United States the word lacquer generally refers to nitrocellulose compounds, but this may change if some other more suitable substance finally replaces this material as an ingredient in quick-drying finishes.
238. Uses for Lacquers.—Almost all of the large paint and varnish manufacturers in the United States are now making lacquers, which in some cases are being unwisely advertised as suitable for nearly all purposes. In the hands of a skilled finisher they produce satisfactory effects; but when a novice attempts to spread them with a brush over newly varnished surfaces, there is sure to be trouble because the solvents in the lacquer are similar to those con-. tained in some of the paint-and-varnish removers, and the newly applied coating reacts with the old, resulting in a spoiled finish.
