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

Furniture Finishing

Only a few minutes are required, after which the bronzed size is baked in an oven, smoothed with moss and given a second baking coat of pale clear protective varnish. Where the object does not permit the various coats to be dipped they may be sprayed, in which case the bronze powder is mixed with a varnish bronzing liquid made up so as to bake after application.

OXIDIZED COPPER

This effect, which is alternate copper color and black, may be imitated with finishing materials by dipping the metal object first in a black gilsonite japan to be baked. When cool, copper bronze powder mixed in varnish bronzing liquid is sprayed on in an irregular pattern to imitate the genuine article, after which it is baked. Novelty effects may be obtained by substituting colored baking enamels for the black japan and using aluminum or colored bronze powders in place of the copper.

METALLIC IMITATIONS

Occasionally it is desirable for one reason or another to duplicate metallic effects with paint rather than metal leaf or bronze powders. Most of these are the product of the ingenuity of some individual finisher and the methods are not preserved once the occasion for their use has passed. However, a few may be cited by way of example. A gold color may be mixed with dry, japan or oil colors by adding to fifty parts white, five parts chrome yellow and one part vermillion; copper verde, to 100 parts white, nineteen parts medium chrome green, three parts each Venetian red, raw umber and light chrome green; brass, to forty parts white, twelve parts light chrome yellow, one part each raw and burnt umber; polished bronze, to ten parts white, five parts raw umber and four parts light chrome yellow. All of these may be mixed thick and brush-stippled for a hammered metal effect or antique glazed for an aged appearance.

The Art Of Patching

THE art of patching damages to wood finishes has progressed from practically nothing to a high degree of development. It would be hard to give a history of this advancement, no matter how brief, for the reason that little record has been made of the progress of the art. It was considered a part of the finishing trade, and a minor thing in the early days of the development of the furniture industry. Very few books give any methods in patching, and what information is given is antiquated to a large extent.

Cabinet makers of the olden days filled all holes in the wood before they varnished with the sawdust from the same wood mixed with glue. It is supposed that they refinished a piece of furniture if it became sufficiently damaged. Prom the time of French polishing (seventeenth century) the only method of patching was to cut down a damage with glass paper and polish it to match the rest of the surface. This polishing was done with shellac principally, or a regular mixed French polish, as given in an old-time formula in a paragraph to follow.