Finishes on Antique Wood Furniture | Home Improvement Blogs
Many different finishes have been utilized to beautify and defend wood furniture by means of the centuries. A lot of historically authentic finishes had been high upkeep, labor intensive, and not quite durable, so the trend has been to far more impervious and enduring finishes appropriate for everyday living.
Basic wax finishes have been used for many years, particularly on rustic or country pine furnishings because of its soft and satiny appear. Wax is easily restored or brightened with a new application, damaged or dull spots are simple to blend. A disadvantage is that wax finishes can spot and stain easily from water, alcohol and cosmetics.
Oil finishes have also been employed for hundreds of years. These penetrating oils are easy for amateurs to make use of since they are basically wiped or brushed onto the wood, allowed to sink in, and wiped dry. This process is repeated a lot of occasions, till the desired sheen is developed. A disadvantage is the fact that the finish might gradually dry out, requiring repeated applications, at times for years to preserve an even sheen. While not particularly durable, if there is certainly harm, it truly is easy to add more oil and it blends in nicely.
Natural shellac was a really popular finish for furniture and floors a century ago. It affords warm color, but has really poor wearability and is simply damaged by each water and alcohol. Shellacked floors had been typically redone annually. Similarly, French polish can be a quite laborious standard technique that is quite bright and glossy, and significantly emphasizes the rich color and grain of stunning wood. Especially well-known in Europe, this finish is very sensitive to harm, costly to apply originally and to repair.
Accurate natural varnish is seldom used anymore. Even though durable and attractive, it needed extremely skilled application, numerous slow-drying coats and plenty of surface preparation.
Conventional lacquer finishes have been well-liked for 100 years ? they?ve good stain resistance, wear properly and might be re-touched or re-coated fairly easily. Hard and fairly brittle, they can chip and crack, and sometimes get crazed or crackled ? ?alligatored? ? more than time. Strong and hazardous solvents are utilized in classic lacquer.
Most newly manufactured furniture has a single coat of plastic-type finish, typically polyurethane or polyester. While really tough and resistant to scratching and stains, the single layer of tinted finish indicates that a modest scratch or ding could go through the finish towards the wood underneath, exposing a various color. These finishes are very challenging to touch up, re-coat or remove for refinishing. The fantastic positive aspects of this method are time and labor savings for manufacturers. Many of these finishes are quick-cured with ultra-violet light, and some are water instead of solvent based. An esthetic disadvantage can be a rather ?plastic? look and really feel.
A recent technique of protecting furniture is water based lacquer, developed and perfected more than recent decades in response to environmental and worker safety concerns. Combining both water and alcohol resistance, these finishes have a more traditional varnished appear, not so ?plastic-like.? They are not as hard and brittle as some other finishes, and might be more simply touched up and re-coated when worn or damaged. Significantly much less hazardous to perform with, they are an excellent middle ground in appearance, durability, and restorability. Considerably as water base paint has all but replaced oil paint, these water ? borne wood finishes are gaining on solvent ? based finish.
These new water-base methods can incorporate standard methods of applying a base coat of stain, topped with repeated coats of clear finish, hand-sanded among each and every coating. Even though involving a lot more labor than most manufacturers are willing to do, this step-by-step finish insures that minor harm to the finish doesn?t go deep into the color or the wood, which indicates it shows much less. Touch-up or repairs to the finish or recoating inside the future are reasonably basic. Environmental and worker safety problems suggest that water-base finishes have an expanding future.
As far as upkeep is concerned, wax finishes are greatest polished having a dry cloth or perhaps a little additional wax. For the other finishes that have a difficult surface, a bit lemon oil, preferably with beeswax, will brighten and deepen the color. Study has shown that too frequent use of lemon oil will soften hard finishes, but in moderation, this can be a excellent polish.
Paste wax has been a standard furniture polish. Besides requiring considerably elbow grease, wax will turn white from one thing hot or wet. Spray commercial polishes (Pledge, Endust and the like) can cause a smeary silicone build-up that can be very difficult to eliminate. They also make any type of touch-up or refinishing problematic. ?Oil and stain? polishes like Old English are temporary scratch covers. A considerably far better notion is usually to use the marker type of scratch covers that come in all shades of wood finishes and easily aid hide minor mars. These are obtainable at most paint and hardware shops. Following using a lemon oil and beeswax polish will increase any dry or worn finish.
No single finish method is proper for each and every piece of furniture, but considerations of price, durability and beauty are all variables inside the option of preserving and enhancing antique wood furnishings for the future.
Source: http://www.whiggingout.com/2011/10/finishes-antique-wood-furniture/
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