The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Furniture Finishing
SPRAY STIPPLING
Wood and metal are first given a sealer coat of thin shellac, plaster and compo shellac or glue, glassware nothing, but all must be thoroughly clean and dry. The stipple paste may then be knifed on if a heavy coating and a coarse pattern is desired or thinned and brushed or sprayed on. For spraying considerable air pressure is required to force out the material since its consistency is necessarily heavy and this naturally makes suction feed out of the question. A large nozzle opening is also essential. For brushing an ordinary bristle brush of convenient size will serve, but however applied, it must be borne in mind that the thicker the coat and the stickier it is allowed to become the rougher it will become in texture.
HAND STIPPLING
Thus when the plastic coating has been allowed to set until the desired stickiness has been reached, from ten to thirty minutes ordinarily, but varying with the make-up, it is ready to be stippled or modeled. This may be done with a stencil brush, a sash tool, a ball of burlap or tough paper, a modeling tool or a sponge moistened in the solvent of the paste or even the fingers. The motion of the hand will create the pattern, thus, up and down brush pouncing will draw up the finish in tips, a circular motion will create a scroll—-the possible variety is unlimited. The more fluid the paste the more blurred will be the design, the stiffer, the less easy it will be to work. The right stage, in fact, the entire process, is best determined from actual experiment.
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As soon as the manipulation is completed the paste should be allowed to dry until hard, the drying time varying according to the character of the formula. On flat surfaces it is often the practice to press down on the partly dried finish with a clean painted board in order to flatten the peaks and ridges; rounded surfaces and figures are smoothed down with dry sandpaper and the work dusted out clean. The finish is then ready to be coated with thin shellac to seal it up for the color coats to follow.
COLOR AND DECORATING
From now on it is largely a question of color combinations as described elsewhere under " Polychroming." In imitating metal the paste is pounced with a bristle brush or scrubber to produce a hammered effect, using thin semi-flat black enamel or japan color for wrought iron and gold bronze and dry burnt umber mixed in varnish for old gold or brass effects, both applied over the shellac sealer coat.
