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Furniture Finishing

Ordinarily while an open grained wood may be filled with natural filler for surfacing purposes, no attempt is made to stain except very delicately on light woods to conform to a color scheme.

For a black finish, however, a close pored wood may be stained ebony and in certain instances painting may be employed to secure combinations of aluminum (for the metallic effect ) with black, blue, scarlet or green lacquer enamel. The final finish may be a French polish or flat or highly polished gloss lacquer.

Brief History Of Furniture

ANY account of furniture finishing and finishing materials must necessarily be brief, owing to the limited supply of information on the subject. In the book of Jeremiah we find, '' Woe unto him who sayeth: I will build me a wide house, sealed with cedar and lined with vermillion." This is the first historical mention of a paint material. Painted furniture in the tomb of King Tutankhamen gave evidence of the art of painting over three thousand years ago. We have evidence of paint being used four thousand years before Christ.

Sculpture was first highly developed by the Greeks, and painting was not fully developed until the Italian Eenaissance of the fifteenth century. Paint pigments (mineral and earth colors), organic dyes, and white lead were first mentioned by Theophrastus about 350 B. C. White lead was known as "cerrussa" and found in Europe in small quantities as carbonate of lead. This material was mentioned also by Pliny, about 50 A. D.

The original Dutch process of making white lead is about 300 years old and attributed to Stratingh. The process was patented in England in 1622. Leclaire discovered the use of zinc white used in paint, in 1845. Lampblack was used two thousand years ago by the Chinese and was obtained by burning oil in lamps with little air and collecting soot on the chimneys. Lampblack found on Egyptian mummy cases was found on the shores of the Black Sea.

Dr. Wm. Henry Perkin of England discovered aniline in 1856 and it was later developed by chemists in Germany and America. The earliest blue indigo was used in Egypt and India and mentioned by the early Byzantine writers. Natural ultramarine blue was used centuries ago, but the artificial product was developed by Christian Gmelin in France, 1828. Prussian blue was discovered by Diesbach in Berlin in 1710.

Ochre, the earliest yellow pigment, was used by the Egyptians, but chrome yellow was made but a hundred years ago. Malachite and verdigris were the first green pigments used and have been found on the wall paintings of Pompeii. Chrome green, so common today, was first made in France in 1838.