The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Furniture Finishing

SURFACING FIRST COATS

Several kinds of machines for surfacing are on the market. Some have attachments for using garnet finishing paper, steel wool, and felt pads. With such a machine large or small surfaces can be rubbed with ease. A pneumatic or electrically propelled rubbing machine that can be moved about on the surface with the hands can do as much work with one man as two or three men can do by hand methods. These machines usually have two feet on which may be attached steel wool pads or garnet paper and they oscillate as the machine is moved back and forth either across or with the grain.

If a machine is used on flat surfaces, care must be exercised as to the pressure applied, as many of them do sufficient work with their own weight. The directions should be folio-wed carefully when using a new machine or when a new operator is using the machine. Most surfaces can be surfaced with the grain of the wood, especially the first coat, though some recommend first crossing the grain and ending up with the grain lightly.

BELT SANDING

Many surfaces cannot be sanded with a machine and much work is done by hand in the factories and especially in smaller shops. Hand surfacing must be employed on uneven surfaces, except where it is possible to use a belt sander. The belt sander can be used on many surfaces that cannot be reached with an oscillating rubbing machine and included in these are the mouldings. The opposite cut from the moulding used, or the reverse of this cut, can be pressed against the belt and the sanding performed in this manner. Of course much care must be used on a first coat of material. Usually removable parts of cabinets are sanded in this way,

Another method is employed on turned pieces, and that is using the wheel sander. The wheel is turning at many revolutions a minute and the piece is placed in contact with the surface of the wheel, to which is attached garnet finishing paper of the proper grade. The surface in this way is smoothed quickly, but very liable to cut through with this method, as the pressure is hard to keep even. For that reason little of this kind of sanding is seen in sanding rooms.

The lathe furnishes not only a method of turning out wood, but of sanding as the piece turns in the lathe. The paper can be made to fit the piece and as it turns the paper is applied and thus the piece is surfaced very quickly. The lathe furnishes a quick means of finishing turned surfaces, as noted in Special Finishes, Book V. Belt sanders and sanding machines are seldom used on furniture after any coats of finishing material are applied. Even in factories most first coats are hand-sanded, as there is not enough material on the work to permit of machine sanding.