The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Furniture Finishing
BRUSHES
Brushes for striping are made special and should be selected with care. The quill striping pencil is best for wide stripes and lining—five-eighths of an inch and up; sword stripers are superior for hair line and stripes running up to a quarter inch. With the latter the width is regulated not so much by the size of the brush as by the pressure exerted through the operator's fingers, light for hair line, heavier for wider stripes. The bristles used in stripers are very soft—ox, camel or black sable hair, and run in length from a half inch to two and a half inches. The longer the hair the more material it will hold and thus the longer the stripe that can be run in one motion. Brushes used in Japan or oil color should be washed out in turpentine, dried, dipped in lard oil and laid away to be washed again in turps when next needed. Those used in lacquer should be washed out in lacquer reducer.
COLORS
Next to skill in laying off the stripe and proper mixing of materials comes selection of color combinations. Walnut is best striped with apple green, satinwood with blue or green, silver gray oak with rich blue; ivory enamel with pale green, deep blue or brown, gray with pink, blue, black or aluminum; green with black, lavender or vermilion; Chinese red with black, deep blue or gold; black with gold, aluminum or vermilion; deep cream with brown, pale blue, jade green or dull red. Two stripes may in special instances be run on the same piece, as for instance a quarter inch between two hair lines, but in general one is enough, especially if antique glazing and hand painted or transfer effects are used in connection.
VEIN OR SCRATCH LINING
On veneered fronts a stripe is apt to stand out too boldly and the range of sufficiently harmonious colors is limited. As a consequence the proposed line of the stripe is frequently routed out in the cabinet room, usually to a depth of a sixteenth of an inch, the same or double in width. This is stained and filled along with the rest of the piece, the surplus filler being cleaned out by running a pointed pick along the line then cleaning off with a stiff bristle shoe-handle brush. Any loose fibres still remaining are fixed by the regular shellac or lacquer sealing coat and readily sand off thus assuring the necessary clean groove. The vein line color should always be applied over this sealer coat— never directly over stain or filler.
