French Polishing and Enamelling.

by Richard Bitmead.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

Early in the present century the method generally adopted for polishing furniture was by rubbing with beeswax and turpentine or with linseed-oil. That process, however, was never considered to be very satisfactory, which fact probably led to experiments being made for the discovery of an improvement. The first intimation of success in this direction appeared in the _Mechanic's Magazine_ of November 22, 1823, and ran as follows: "The Parisians have now introduced an entirely new mode of polishing, which is called _plaque_, and is to wood precisely what plating is to metal. The wood by some process is made to resemble marble, and has all the beauty of that article with much of its solidity. It is even a.s.serted by persons who have made trial of the new mode that water may be spilled upon it without staining it." Such was the announcement of an invention which was destined ultimately to become a new industry.

The following pages commence with a description of the art of French Polishing in its earliest infancy, care having been taken by the Author, to the best of his ability, to note all the new processes and manipulations, as well as to concisely and perspicuously arrange and describe the various materials employed, not only for French polishing but for the improving and preparation of furniture woods, a matter of great importance to the polisher. The arts of Staining and Imitating, whereby inferior woods are made to resemble the most costly, are also fully treated, as well as the processes of Enamelling, both in oil-varnishes and French polish, together with the method of decorating the same. The condition of the art of polishing in America is dwelt upon, and various interesting articles written by practical polishers in the States, which appeared in their trade journal, _The Cabinet-maker_, have been revised and printed in this work.

A number of valuable recipes, and other instructive matter, useful alike to the amateur and to the practical workman, are also given.

FRENCH POLISHING

AND

ENAMELLING.

CHAPTER I.

_THE IMPROVING AND PREPARATION OF FURNITURE WOODS._

For a French polisher to be considered a good workman he should, in addition to his ordinary ability to lay on a good polish, possess considerable knowledge of the various kinds of wood used for furniture, as well as the most approved method of bringing out to the fullest extent their natural tones or tints; he should also be able to improve the inferior kinds of wood, and to stain, bleach, or match any of the fancy materials to which his art is applied, in a manner that will produce the greatest perfection. The following information is given to facilitate a thorough knowledge of the above processes.

=Improving.=--Iron filings added to a decoction of gall-nuts and vinegar will give to ebony which has been discoloured an intense black, after brushing over once or twice. Walnut or poor-coloured rosewood can be improved by boiling half an ounce of walnut-sh.e.l.l extract and the same quant.i.ty of catechu in a quart of soft-water, and applying with a sponge. Half a pound of walnut husks and a like quant.i.ty of oak bark boiled in half a gallon of water will produce much the same result.

Common mahogany can be improved by rubbing it with powdered red-chalk (ruddle) and a woollen rag, or by first wiping the surface with liquid ammonia, and red-oiling afterwards. For a rich mild red colour, rectified spirits of naphtha, dyed with camwood dust, or an oily decoction of alkanet-root. Methylated spirits and a small quant.i.ty of dragon's blood will also produce a mild red. Any yellow wood can be improved by an alcoholic solution of Persian berries, fustic, turmeric, or gamboge. An aqueous decoction of barberry-root will serve the same purpose. Birch when preferred a warm tint may be sponged with oil, very slightly tinted with rose-madder or Venetian red; the greatest care should be used, or it will be rendered unnatural in appearance by becoming too red. Maple which is of a dirty-brown colour, or of a cold grey tint, and mahogany, ash, oak, or any of the light-coloured woods, can be whitened by the bleaching fluid (see "MATCHING"). Numerous materials may be improved by the aid of raw linseed-oil mixed with a little spirits of turpentine. Artificial graining may be given to various woods by means of a camel-hair pencil and raw oil; two or three coats should be given, and after standing for some time the ground should have one coat of oil much diluted with spirits of turpentine, and then rubbed off.

=Matching.=--Old mahogany furniture which has been repaired may be easily matched by wiping over the new portions with water in which a nodule of lime has been dissolved, or by common soda and water. The darkeners for general use are dyed oils, logwood, aquafortis, sulphate of iron, and nitrate of silver, with exposure to the sun's rays. For new furniture in oak, ash, maple, etc., the process of matching requires care and skill. When it is desirable to render all the parts in a piece of furniture of one uniform tone or tint, bleach the dark parts with a solution of oxalic acid dissolved in hot water (about two-pennyworth of acid to half a pint of water is a powerful solution); when dry, if this should not be sufficient, apply the white stain (see pp. 11, 12) delicately toned down, or the light parts may be oiled. For preserving the intermediate tones, coat them with white polish by means of a camel-hair pencil. On numerous woods, carbonate of soda and bichromate of potash are very effective as darkeners, as are also other preparations of an acid or alkaline nature, but the two given above are the best.

A good way of preparing these darkeners, says the "French Polisher's Manual," an excellent little work published in Perth some years since, is to procure twopennyworth of carbonate of soda in powder, and dissolve it in half a pint of boiling water; then have ready three bottles, and label them one, two, three. Into one put half the solution, and into the other two half a gill each; to number two add an additional gill of water, and to number three two gills. Then get the same quant.i.ty of bichromate of potash, and prepare it in a like manner; you will then have six staining fluids for procuring a series of brown and dark tints suitable for nearly all cla.s.ses of wood.

The bichromate of potash is useful to darken oak, walnut, beech, or mahogany, but if applied to ash it renders it of a greenish cast. If a sappy piece of walnut should be used either in the solid or veneer, darken it to match the ground colour, and then fill in the dark markings with a feather and the black stain (see pp. 10, 11). The carbonate solutions are generally used for dark surfaces, such as rosewood represents, and a still darker shade can be given to any one by oiling over after the stain is dry. The better way of using these chemical stains is to pour out into a saucer as much as will serve the purpose, and to apply it quickly with a sponge rubbed rapidly and evenly over the surface, and rubbed off dry immediately with old rags. Dark and light portions, between which the contrast is slight, may be made to match by varnishing the former and darkening the latter with oil, which should remain on it sufficiently long; by this means the different portions may frequently be made to match without having recourse to bleaching or staining.

=Painting.=--The next process is painting. It frequently happens in cabinet work that a faulty place is not discovered until after the work is cleaned off; the skill of the polisher is then required to paint it to match the other. A box containing the following colours in powder will be found of great utility, and when required for use they should be mixed with French polish and applied with a brush. The pigments most suitable are: drop black, raw sienna, raw and burnt umber, Vand.y.k.e brown, French Naples yellow (bear in mind that this is a very opaque pigment), cadmium yellow, madder carmine (these are expensive), flake white, and light or Venetian red; before mixing, the colours should be finely pounded. The above method of painting, however, has this objection for the best cla.s.s of furniture, that the effects of time will darken the body of the piece of furniture, whilst the painted portion will remain very nearly its original colour. In first-cla.s.s work, therefore, stained polishes or varnishes should be applied instead of these pigments.

=Dyed Polishes.=--The methods of dyeing polish or varnish are as follows: for a red, put a little alkanet-root or camwood dust into a bottle containing polish or varnish; for a bright yellow, a small piece of aloes; for a yellow, ground turmeric or gamboge; for a brown, carbonate of soda and a very small quant.i.ty of dragon's blood; and for a black, a few logwood chips, gall-nuts, and copperas, or by the addition of gas-black.

The aniline dyes (black excepted) are very valuable for dyeing polishes, the most useful being Turkey-red, sultan red, purple, and brown. A small portion is put into the polish, which soon dissolves it, and no straining is required. The cheapest way to purchase these dyes is by the ounce or half-ounce. The penny packets sold by chemists are too expensive, although a little goes a long way.

CHAPTER II.

_STAINS AND IMITATIONS._

In consequence of the high price demanded for furniture made of the costly woods, the art of the chemist has been called into requisition to produce upon the inferior woods an a.n.a.logous effect at a trifling expense. The materials employed in the artificial colouring of wood are both mineral and vegetable; the mineral is the most permanent, and when caused by chemical decomposition within the pores it acts as a preservative agent in a greater or less degree. The vegetable colouring matters do not penetrate so easily, probably on account of the affinity of the woody fibre for the colouring matter, whereby the whole of the latter is taken up by the parts of the wood with which it first comes into contact. Different intermediate shades, in great variety, may be obtained by combinations of colouring matters, according to the tint desired, and the ideas of the stainer. The processes technically known as "grounding and ingraining" are partly chemical and partly mechanical, and are designed to teach the various modes of operation whereby the above effects can be produced. We will commence with

=Imitation Mahogany.=--Half a pound of madder-root, and two ounces of logwood chips boiled in a gallon of water. Brush over while hot; when dry, go over it with a solution of pearlash, a drachm to a pint. Beech or birch, brushed with aquafortis in sweeping regular strokes, and immediately dried in front of a good fire, form very good imitations of old wood. Venetian red mixed with raw linseed-oil also forms a good stain.

The following is a method in common use by French cabinet-makers. The white wood is first brushed over with a diluted solution of nitrous acid; next, with a solution made of methylated spirits one gill, carbonate of soda three-quarters of an ounce, and dragon's blood a quarter of an ounce; and a little red tint is added to the varnish or polish used afterwards. Black American walnut can be made to imitate mahogany by brushing it over with a weak solution of nitric acid.

=Imitation Rosewood.=--Boil half a pound of logwood chips in three pints of water until the decoction is a very dark red; then add an ounce of salt of tartar. Give the work three coats boiling hot; then with a graining tool or a feather fill in the dark markings with the black stain. A stain of a very bright shade can be made with methylated spirits half a gallon, camwood three-quarters of a pound, red-sanders a quarter of a pound, extract of logwood half a pound, aquafortis one ounce. When dissolved, it is ready for use. This makes a very bright ground. It should be applied in three coats over the whole surface, and when dry it is gla.s.s-papered down with fine paper to a smooth surface, and is then ready for graining. The fibril veins are produced by pa.s.sing a graining tool with a slight vibratory motion, so as to effect the natural-looking streaks, using the black stain. A coat of the bichromate of potash solution referred to on page 4 will make wildly-figured mahogany have the appearance of rosewood.

=Imitation Walnut.=--A mixture of two parts of brown umber and one part of sulphuric acid, with spirits of wine or methylated spirits added until it is sufficiently fluid, will serve for white wood. Showy elm-wood, after being delicately darkened with the bichromate solution No. 1, page 4, will pa.s.s for walnut; it is usually applied on the cheap loo-table pillars, which are made of elm-wood. Equal portions of the bichromate and carbonate solutions (see page 4), used upon American pine, will have a very good effect.

Another method for imitating walnut is as follows: One part (by weight) of walnut-sh.e.l.l extract is dissolved in six parts of soft-water, and slowly heated to boiling until the solution is complete. The surface to be stained is cleaned and dried, and the solution applied once or twice; when half-dry, the whole is gone over again with one part of chromate of potash boiled in five parts of water. It is then dried, rubbed down, and polished in the ordinary way.

The extract of walnut-sh.e.l.ls and chromate of potash are procurable at any large druggist's establishment. A dark-brown is the result of the action of copper salts on the yellow prussiate of potash; the sulphate of copper in soft woods gives a pretty reddish-brown colour, in streaks and shades, and becomes very rich after polishing or varnishing.

Different solutions penetrate with different degrees of facility. In applying, for instance, acetate of copper and prussiate of potash to larch, the sap-wood is coloured most when the acetate is introduced first; but when the prussiate is first introduced, the heart-wood is the most deeply coloured. Pyrolignite of iron causes a dark-grey colour in beech, from the action and tannin in the wood on the oxide of iron; while in larch it merely darkens the natural colour. Most of the tints, especially those caused by the prussiates of iron and copper, are improved by the exposure to light, and the richest colours are produced when the process is carried out rapidly.

=Imitation Ebony.=--Take half a gallon of strong vinegar, one pound of extract of logwood, a quarter of a pound of copperas, two ounces of China blue, and one ounce of nut-gall. Put these into an iron pot, and boil them over a slow fire till they are well dissolved. When cool, the mixture is ready for use. Add a gill of iron filings steeped in vinegar.

The above makes a perfect jet black, equal to the best black ebony. A very good black is obtained by a solution of sulphate of copper and nitric acid; when dry, the work should have a coat of strong logwood stain.

=Imitation Oak.=--To imitate old oak, the process known as "fumigating"

is the best. This is produced by two ounces of American potash and two ounces of pearlash mixed together in a vessel containing one quart of hot water.

Another method is by dissolving a lump of bichromate of potash in warm water; the tint can be varied by adding more water. This is best done out of doors in a good light. Very often in sending for bichromate of potash a mistake is made, and chromate of potash is procured instead; this is of a yellow colour, and will not answer the purpose. The bichromate of potash is the most powerful, and is of a red colour. A solution of asphaltum in spirits of turpentine is frequently used to darken new oak which is intended for painter's varnish, or a coating of boiled oil.

Another method of imitating new oak upon any of the inferior light-coloured woods is to give the surface a coat of Stephens's satin-wood stain, and to draw a soft graining-comb gently over it, and when the streaky appearance is thus produced a camel-hair pencil should be taken and the veins formed with white stain. This is made by digesting three-quarters of an ounce of flake white (subnitrate of bis.m.u.th), and about an ounce of isingla.s.s in two gills of boiling water; it can be made thinner by adding more water, or can be slightly tinted if desired.

Proficients in staining and imitating can make American ash so like oak that experienced judges are frequently deceived, the vein and shade of the spurious wood looking nearly as natural as the genuine. After the veining is done, it should be coated with white hard varnish, made rather thin by adding more spirits, after which the ground can be delicately darkened if required.

=Imitation Satin-wood.=--Take methylated spirits one quart, ground turmeric three ounces, powdered gamboge one and a-half ounces. This mixture should be steeped to its full strength, and then strained through fine muslin, when it will be ready for use. Apply with a sponge, and give two coats; when dry, gla.s.s-paper down with fine old paper. This makes a good imitation for inside work. By the addition of a little dragon's blood an orange tint can be produced. A yellow colour can also be given to wood by boiling hot solutions of turmeric, Persian berries, fustic, etc. but the colour is very fugitive. A more permanent colour results from nitric acid, and last of all by the successive introduction of acetate of lead and chromate of potash. Sulphate of iron also stains wood of a yellowish colour when used as a preservative agent, so much so, that the use of corrosive sublimate is recommended for this purpose when it is desirable to preserve the light colour.

=A Blue Stain.=--This dye can be obtained by dissolving East Indian indigo in a.r.s.enious acid, which will give a dark blue. A lighter blue can be obtained by hot solutions of indigo, of sulphate of copper, and by the successive introduction of pyrolignite of iron and prussiate of potash.

=A Green Stain.=--Dissolve one ounce of Roman vitriol in a quart of boiling water, to which is added one ounce of pearlash; the mixture should then be forcibly agitated, and a small quant.i.ty of pulverised yellow a.r.s.enic stirred in. A green is also the result of successive formations in the pores of the wood of a blue and a yellow as above indicated, and by a hot solution of acetate of copper in water. A yellowish green may be obtained by the action of copper salts on the red prussiate of potash.

=A Purple Stain.=--Boil one pound of logwood chips in three quarts of water, until the full strength is obtained; then add four ounces of pearlash and two ounces of powdered indigo. When these ingredients are thoroughly dissolved, it is ready for use, either hot or cold. A purple is also obtained by a boiling hot solution of logwood and Brazil-wood, one pound of the former and one quarter of a pound of the latter to a gallon of water.