The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Furniture Finishing
NITROCELLULOSE LACQUERS
The test of lacquers is important. There has been a great deal of trouble in some factories as a result of lacquer blooming and turning gray after a few weeks. This is mostly because it is rubbed too soon.
Thinner for lacquer should always be purchased from the same concern making the lacquer, for the thinner must be in the same balanced proportion if the lacquer is to work correctly after thinning. Use of the wrong thinner will sometimes throw the cotton out of the solution entirely. Some finishers think they can make their own thinner and try mixing alcohol, acetone and toluol, etc., in various proportions, and of course waste more time and spoil more work than could ever be saved in this way. One thing sure to be remembered is that a great amount of lacquer on the market is little better than varnish for heat resisting and pressure marks. A real good lacquer should not mark from dishes, unless extremely hot, and pressure from packing should not mark it. Lacquers that mark easily contain a large amount of spirit soluble gums and not sufficient cotton film.
COLOR AND COLOR HARMOXY
Every furniture finisher should have a working knowledge of color and color harmony. There are certain fundamental facts in regard to color that are invaluable. The normal colors are the colors of the spectrum, which may be seen when a ray of light passes through a glass prism. Blue, red and yellow are primary colors, and the combining of these colors produce the secondary colors, orange, violet and green. They are formed by combining two primaries, yellow and red producing orange; red and blue producing violet; and blue and yellow producing green. In addition to these are the colors known as tertiary colors, formed by mixing a primary and a secondary together. For instance, the product of yellow and orange is yellow-orange; red with orange gives red-orange, etc.
Luminous or warm colors are red. yellow, orange, light green and light tones of somber colors. The somber or cold colors are blue, violet and dull tones of luminous colors. Normal gray is black and white mixed in various proportions. Tones are gradations from great intensity, weakened by the addition of white or deepened by the addition of black. Hue is the change produced in a pure color by the addition of a smaller quantity of another pure color.
Color Harmony.—Colors appear different when placed side by side. For example, in a red object half in sunlight and half in shade, the red appears more brilliant in the sunlight as a result of the color absorbing the complementary colors, yellow and blue, in the sun's rays, and giving off more red or intensity of this color.
