The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Furniture Finishing

With lacquer the work may be done entirely by spray using lacquer pigment first coater, lacquer enamel, the glaze clouded rather than stippled, decorated and protected over all by two coats of clear lacquer rubbed or one coat gloss body lacquer and one of flat lacquer. However, lacquer is largely a production finish and Venetian reproductions are turned out mostly in limited quantities.


Two-Tnoning


THERE furniture is finished in two different colors or two tones of the same color it may be said to be two-toned. Although strictly speaking the term might also be applied to color shading, stipple glazing, banding, crackling, frosting, etc., it has acquired a special application as described hereafter. The effect may be simple or elaborate and is employed on all grades of furniture from the cheapest to the most expensive.

STAIN

In the case of an oak, mahogany, walnut, gum or birch cabinet for instance, the panels will usually be a light shade, the frame work, knobs, overlays, etc., a darker shade. The effect may be procured by applying oil or water stain full strength on the latter, cut half or more on the former. Or the piece may be water stained a light shade all over, followed when dry by a wash coat of shellac applied to the panels only. The piece is then filled all over, with the result that the filler coloring and oils deepen the tone of the unshellaced frame work, but leave the protected panels light.

Again the shellac wash coat may be applied to the bare wood of the panels, the frame stained and the entire piece filled with similar results. Still again the entire piece may be stained, with a second application of stain on the frame only. The shellac wash coat system is valuable in keeping stains of different strengths from showing a ragged boundary by bleeding into one another. The color contrast may be as little or as great as desired; on cheaper work the dark effect is produced with semitransparent black shellac, contrasted with lighter parts stained in regular walnut or mahogany tones.

THE BOUNDARY

On oak and walnut the boundary line is often routed out in straight lines with a routing machine varied sometimes by a diamond or scroll pattern to give the effect of overlays. The depression may be lined with drop black, raw umber or chrome yellow in japan, or jet nigrosene in shellac, also gold, apple green or magenta bronze color to heighten the contrast.

(See Vein Lining, Chapter X.) If desired a bead or moulding, stained and high-lighted or painted green or brown and antique glazed, may be substituted to serve the same dividing purpose. With mahogany and walnut different types of veneers provide a two-, three-, four- or even five-toned effect, all left natural or carefully stained so as to make the contrast appear rather in the figure of the wood than in jumbled coloring. (See Matched Veneers, Chapter IX.)