The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Furniture Finishing
Where the body color is lacquer enamel, the shading color is usually of the same type, reduced for "smoking" or "misting," one part to one part of clear lacquer and four parts of reducer, although the exact proportions will often have to be varied to suit the body of the lacquer enamel used and the hiding qualities of the particular color. If applied too heavy the shading will feel "dusted" or rough to the touch, and a clear melting coat will have to be applied, composed of seven parts reducer and one part clear lacquer.
On paint body colors japan colors may be employed, reduced to thin consistency with benzine or turpentine and reinforced with a little pale varnish to bring up the lustre if a clear final coat is not to be applied over such shading. Oil colors are not popular owing to their slowness of drying, although this may be speeded up by the addition of pale japan dryer in small quantities. Aniline spirit stains in shellac do not give the desired depth of color on the deeply shaded areas owing to their complete transparency.
Color-shading runs to far greater depth of tone than antique shading as the idea is based somewhat on a compromise between two-toning and the graduated feathering out peculiar to misting and smoking. In other words color-shading is not required to be altogether transparent except as misted, and this appears only as the centre of the surface is approached.
Antique dusting
VERY often a visit to a museum will reveal an antique piece of furniture which has been brought to light after centuries of hiding and neglect. Note how dust and dirt have collected in the carvings, crevices, pores and mouldings, giving the finish in whole or in part a decidedly grayish brown tone. To reproduce this on new stained furniture, to create the same aged effect or to soften bright colors in addition to antique glazing, as on polychrome, lamps, picture frames, etc., there are a number of different methods.
OPEN-GRAINED WOODS
Walnut, oak, ash and elm, being open-pored, dust will catch in the open grain as well as in carvings. It is therefore possible to get the effect by filling over stain and wash coat with gray paste wood filler, but instead of wiping off the flatted filler at right angles to the grain so as to pack it flush with the surface, a diagonal stroke is used which takes out only a portion. As few early antiques were ever filled, this gives the effect of dust accumulation which occurred during the centuries of use there- after. The filler is protected with thin coats of shellac and either flat lacquer or varnish, or waxed directly on the shellac. Mahogany came into use as a cabinet wood so late in history that it is ordinarily not antiqued in this manner.
