The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Furniture Finishing
LACQUER GRAINING SYSTEM
For quicker work or where no baking facilities exist, lacquer materials may be used, beginning with a lacquer pigment primer and ground color and finishing with three coats of clear body lacquer. For graining, two-hour drying lacquer paste is pre- ferred, or oil colors if baked, using either the brush or block process. However, the metal should not be cleaned with ben- zine, but rather with one or another of the patent caustic solutions previously referred to, or lacquer reducer. Compared to a baked finish, it is a question whether the adhesion of lacquer materials can be as strong; it is certain that the filling properties and general appearance of body are not as great. For this reason the practice is generally to bake the undercoats and confine lacquer to the clear finishing.
Enamel metal furniture
WHERE enameled furniture once implied not much more than an iron cot painted gloss white the advance in fabricating and baking methods now offers us designs and color schemes that vie with and sometimes surpass that shown on wooden furniture.
First Coat.—The preparation of the metal is identical with that already described for a grained finish and any greasy residue left by benzine is baked out in the first coat. This first coat is a baking primer which should be thin but of good hiding quality and extremely tough, best purchased from a manufacturer specializing in baking materials. It may be applied by dipping or spraying according to the construction of the piece, thinned with heavy gravity naphtha to permit free draining but complete covering without sags. Once primed the piece should be run into the oven with as little handling as possible so as to avoid marring the fresh finish. There it should receive a uniformly distributed heat, as high as the color will stand, according to the maker's recommendations. Whites and ivories, whether primer or enamel, will rarely stand over 200° F. with-out discoloring, ranging up to 250° for the deepest shades, although this will vary somewhat with the different makes as well as the quality of the goods. With some classes of metal furniture, notably office pieces finished in olive greens which have excellent hiding properties, the original primer coat may be rubbed with pumice and rubbing oil, then pumice and furniture polish for a complete finish, Second Coat.—On the better grades and where lighter colors are involved the primer coat is sanded with fine paper and given either (1) a second coat of the same material, to be followed by a clear finish coat; (2) a second coat of the same material, mixed half with gloss enamel to produce an eggshell lustre, or (3) a coat of tough high lustre enamel, after which nothing further is applied if a light shade. All are applied and baked as de- scribed for the first coat.
