The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Furniture Finishing
When small places have been chipped out the repair can be effected by burning in a like color of wood cement, but if the damage is large it will be better to follow the outline in repairing enamel surfaces and building up with spirit enamel tinted to the desired shade. The most difficult part of this operation is the smoothing down of the patching material without removing the graining on the ground coat. French Polishing Method in Graining.—By sanding the surface, which is never thick, one can feather out the edges of the damage until the spot is very smooth. Build up the spot by using French varnish on a rubber as outlined in Chapter V under the heading, Rubbed Through Places, and apply aniline spirit stain of a color or colors to match the lightest or ground coat of the finish. After the spot resembles the ground coat, continue to apply stain of a darker shade to make the grained effects match the surrounding surface. Be sure to apply the stain with the finger and keep the surface just soft enough to hold the powder stain when applied. Dull the surface just after matching with a dulling brush with pumice.
Patching Special Finishes
THIS chapter deals largely with the special finishes in Book Vand some of the finishes mentioned in Book III. Such finishes, as applied to turned objects, cedar chests, refrigerators, kitchen cabinets, radio cabinets, breakfast room furniture, grained or enameled furniture, office furniture, chairs or any other finishes, are dealt with in the preceding chapters of this book.
GOLD BRONZE FINISHES
There is only one efficient method of patching a plain, gold bronze finish. The best example of this type of finish is the old Venus Martin bed finish. Many small pieces of furniture are decorated with gold bronze in frame gold or burnishing bronze, and require about the same general treatment. "When a place has been disturbed on a plain bronze finish it is necessary to smooth this out by sanding with 6/0 garnet finishing paper and wipe with a dry cloth. Use a small mouth-spray and insert it in a small bottle of japan bronzing liquid, blowing just sufficient liquid on the spot to make a good coverage. Allow this liquid to set about one minute and be sure there are no runs. Take a little of the gold bronze of the correct shade—mixing a deep gold with a pale gold is sometimes necessary to match— and blow the bronze from the hand onto the spot. If properly done the bronze will adhere to the spot and be perfectly smooth and evenly distributed. After about thirty minutes, blow over this a little bronzing lacquer, banana oil, or if finished as a whole with nitro-cellulose lacquer, use that as a spray Lacquer spraying must be done quickly, and the lacquer must be reasonably thin for good smooth results, without lapping to any great extent over the other finish.
