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Furniture Finishing
Finish Coat.—As indicated, the finish coat may be the first coat, a second or a third coat, and may be rubbed down with a felt pad and pumice stone mixed in rubbing oil or rubbed and polished with tripoli and furniture polish if a very high luster is desired.
In the lighter shades two or three coats are applied, consisting of primer for the first coat and primer and enamel mixed for the second coat, or two coats primer and one of enamel. If rubbed the slush is wiped off and the piece washed with water and wiped dry; with respect to polishing, the luster as the enamel comes out of the oven or kiln is often sufficient
in itself.
CLEAR VARNISH FINISH
Where darker shades of enamel are employed the custom is to apply two coats of primer, decorating the latter as it comes from the oven, then spray or dip on a coat of clear, pale, tough varnish, which may be left in the natural gloss after baking or rubbed down as above described for an eggshell lustre.
DECORATION
The decorating of enameled metal furniture is much the same in method as for painted wooden furniture and includes twotoning, glaze, stippling, striping, shading, free-hand painting, stencilling and banding. The work may be done either with oil colors to be baked, or with japan colors to be air dried, where a clear varnish protective coat is to be applied. Decalcomanias may safely be applied under varnish to be baked.
TWO-COAT BROWN FINISH
For a cheap finish, especially on bedsteads, a coat of brown enamel is dipped or sprayed and baked on at about 300° F. The brown enamel should cover well in one coat and be of a shade harmonizing with walnut or brown mahogany, minus, of course, the grained effect. Over it is dipped or sprayed a coat of baking flat varnish which gives the desired rubbed luster without the expense of actual rubbing.
A LACQUER ENAMEL SYSTEM
The advantages of lacquer enamel for metal furniture finishing are as yet uncertain. In the first place no lacquer pigment primer has yet been developed with the same permanence of adhesion as that afforded by baked oil primer. In the second place, the application of lacquer enamel over a baked oil primer, while perfectly feasible, requires at least two coats and consequently saves little in time or expense as against the quickness of baking and the relative economy in cost of even a good grade of oil baking enamel.
