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Furniture Finishing

FRETS AND GRILLES

Frets represent a lattice work style of overlay, glued to an otherwise plain surface to break it up. "When set in an open frame, as with chair backs, radio and phonograph fronts, they are known as grilles. The terms are in practice interchangeable; for instance when band sawed and cemented to the glass fronts of china cabinets, they are referred to as either frets or grilles.

Both are economical in cost and highly decorative in character when placed on the right type of design. An example would be their use on Spanish designs to imitate in wood the curiously wrought metal hinges and plaques of Renaissance originals.

As with inlay and marquetry the design is first scratched on the surface, but unlike the former, frets are applied directly over the pattern so produced, standing out a sixteenth to an eighth of an inch. Another difference is that frets should be applied ready finished and over a finished surface—hence great care must be exercised so that surplus glue does not ooze out and spoil the ground. Grilles are customarily finished in the same color as the remainder of the piece, but frets may be stained or painted a lighter or darker color to produce a two-tone contrast.

Both may be high-lighted and shaded if desired; when painted they are customarily antique dazed. When stained a straight color, frets and grilles may have the stain applied by dipping, then set on or in the piece when dry.

Matched Veneers


MORE than half the cabinet work produced today depends for its chief decorative interest on the use of so-called fancy veneers—burl, pencil stripe and stump walnut, crotch, pencil stripe and fiddle back mahogany, curly, blister or birds-eye maple, satinwood, rosewood, ebony, ash and sycamore to mention only a part. They are used on surfaces as small as a drawer front and as large as the rounded headboard of a bed-stead. The finer the figure the more carefully must the veneer be laid or the pattern will be broken up by cross rails, uprights and corner blocks. On surfaces too large for a single veneer pattern the veneer is cut in two or in four quarters so as to match the figure of one exactly in the other without noticeable variation.

TOUCHING UP

In cases where the cabinet room cannot or has not done an Al job, it is necessary for the finisher to do a little touching up. Sap or other light streaks in walnut have to be toned up by hand with a bnihh coat of a weak walnut crystal water solution before the regular stain coat is applied, conforming to the prevailing tone of the veneer coat.