Newsletter October 26, 2002

Apply a thin coat of linseed oil to your metal tools, using a brush or cloth, as a rust preventive. Wipe the excess off with a clean cloth to prevent a buildup of dust.

We left off last time with a little thrift store table or a piece of wood to practice crackling on that should have all the irregularities filled and sanded.

If you sanded any smoother than a 180 grit sandpaper, you should give a quick resand with no higher than 180 grit to give a little 'tooth' for the paint to stick to. After sanding remove the sanding dust with a Tack Cloth, then give the surface a good coat of primer. Shellac is good for priming. It can be sanded to a nice smoothness (still not more than 180 grit), cleans nicely and sticks to just about anything that will sit still long enough to coat it.

Now it's time for the base coat. If you haven't given much thought to what Colors to use, now is the time. You will need to decide if you want the colors to lightly complement each other or go bold and make a contrast.

The base coat will make the color for the cracks and the top coat will make the predominant color, so if you use silver as the base coat and black as the top coat the finished product will be black with silver cracks.

Apply the base coat over the primer and let the base coat dry. You can apply the base coat with a brush, roller, pad, spray or whatever way is the most comfortable for you. The next step is what causes the crackle.

There are several substances you can use as a crackle medium.

1. The old timey way before modern ways and chemicals was to use animal hide glue and it's just exactly as the name implies, animal hide, hooves, horns and such things and it's heated and liquefied in a glue pot. If you're a staunch traditionalist and have a problem smelling, the Glue Pot and Glue Fixin's are available, but be aware that while it's heating it's stinky.

2. Modern day staunch traditionalists can have the best of both worlds. There is a Liquid Hide Glue that's the same as the original, only it's liquid all the time and ready to use and without the odor.

3. Regular old everyday white glue.

4. Commercial crackling medium.

5. Crackle Kit.

We'd better wrap this up for this installment so we've got room for interesting things for those not interested in crackling. We'll finish the crackling next edition of the newsletter.

Don't use nails when repairing joints, they just give a place for pivoting. If a glue joint loosens again at a later date, if you've used nails, they can sometimes be impossible to remove without major damage to the surrounding wood. If you need additional support for the glue joint, use a narrow screw, they're a lot easier to remove.

- Email Question -

How do you feel about a wood varnish that already has stain in it? Would that look just as nice as if I stained it and then put a clear coat on it?

Thanks,

Jen

I've found your site very helpful in my re-finishing learning.

- Answer -

Stain and clear coat is the best way to do it.

You generally will need more than one coat of finish. A stain tinted varnish would be opaque, so that each coat you add would add more of the opaque color and each coat would make the finish darker and harder to see the grain pattern of the wood.

When you stain, then clear coat, each coat of clear finish will add depth to the clear finish coat and except for a slight ambering of some finishes each clear coat will leave the color just as it was with the first coat.

Most varnishes will add layer after layer of clear coat to make a final finish and lacquer will dissolve the very top skin of the previous coat and add itself to the prior coat making one thick transparent clear coat.

Although I generally harp on not sanding furniture unless it's absolutely necessary, sometimes it is absolutely necessary.

My sander of choice for small jobs is my hand and a piece of sandpaper, but when the going gets tough, the tough pick up a Finish Sander. It sands the finish and vibrates your muscle making it tougher. Actually the finish sander can do a more even job of sanding a large flat surface than you can with just your hand and sandpaper.

The finishing sander is the same principle as a vibrating massager that you use on your skin, so you can tell that it's gentler on the wood than other electric sanders. You could use a finishing sander with a piece of foam on your back and it would feel relaxing and good, but I couldn't say the same for a belt sander.

A belt sander is for removing very large amounts of wood in a hurry, like when you're building a tree house and have to make an indentation for a tree limb, but they don't have any place in furniture refinishing.

A random orbit sander is real handy for removing a large amount of wood on a flat surface, but read about what happened to my leg and the trunk lid of the car when I tried to use it on an edge. Scroll down the page at the link to Random Orbit Sander.

When sanding spindles a sanding sponge is real handy. The sanding sponge generally has two different grits, a different grit on each side. If you don't have a sanding sponge handy, use a regular sponge with a quarter sheet of sandpaper, it won't get into the tight areas like a sanding sponge, but it will go around some pretty good curves.

Linseed oil is a jack of all trades. It's used by itself as a finish, as a base and driers for paint, to make linoleum, as a nutritional supplement (not the kind from the hardware store, it will have chemicals that can be very seriously bad for you taken internally), in milady's, or anyone else's, make-up and so many other things that it would be impossible to go through a whole day without seeing something linseed oil related.

Linseed oil is pressed from the flax seed, using two different methods, the cold press method is used for nutritional and possibly ingested linseed oil and hot press for the other stuff.

The part that we're mainly interested in is as a finish and it's use in paint.

Raw linseed oil will eventually dry and harden, but it takes a long time. Boiled linseed oil will dry and harden much quicker than the raw linseed oil will. See Tung Oil for an idea of the drying process.

Both boiled and raw linseed oil are used in paint. The raw linseed oil gives longer open and spreadability time, but dries considerably slower than boiled linseed oil.

Boiled linseed oil was actually boiled, (DON'T BOIL YOUR OWN AT HOME, IT'S VERY VOLATILE AND FLAMMABLE AND CAN BURST INTO FLAMES VERY READILY), but most modern day boiled linseed oil has never had a bubble in it, it has chemicals added to it that gives it similar properties to the actual boiled linseed oil.

We hear that the old furniture masters preferred oil finishes, but that isn't necessarily so if they had something else handy. A boiled linseed oil finish is labor intensive and time consuming. The purists believe that it must be applied with your bare hand so you can feel the heat from the friction and the general feel of how the finish is going on. If you use your bare hand be careful of slivers on the first coat on new work.

The boiled linseed oil needs to be put on generously and rubbed vigorously, whether with bare hand or with cloth, until there is a warmth, which thins the linseed oil and makes the wood more absorptive. You keep this process up until the wood won't absorb any more oil or you drop to the floor cringing with pain in your arm and shoulder and then get up bravely and change hands until the first one recuperates.

The rule of thumb for a good linseed oil finish is to do the application process once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year and once a year until you're too old and feeble to do it any more.

This is the time of year that a lot of us will be having potpourri around the house. Whether it's natural smell goods like flower petals, pine cones and needles and other such nice things, or a liquid potpourri, they can all damage furniture finishes if they're left in direct contact. Dried potpourri can be brushed up without any problems, but if you're filling a liquid potpourri container it should be done away from furniture finishes and the potpourri container should be put on a plate, which is on a doily or trivet on your furniture finish.

- Email Question -

I have Dixie bedroom furniture painted "off white" with a white plastic veneer on top of the night stands, dresser and chest of drawers. I want to strip and stain it, hoping to use the natural wood without re-painting. How do I get rid of that ghastly white veneer?

Thank you.

Lashaun

- Answer -

It's hard to say what you might run into if you tried to remove the plastic laminate.

The quickest, easiest and most sure way to get what you want in the way of appearance is to apply a wood veneer over the plastic laminate.

There is a Peel and Stick Veneer that is real easy to use. If you've ever used self stick shelf paper you can use this veneer and it's actually easier than the paper since it won't wrinkle.

Clean the plastic laminate very thoroughly with lacquer thinner, then lay the veneer on the surface lapping over on all four sides.

Use a rolling pin to roll the veneer down tight all over the whole surface. You can also use a smooth block of wood and set it carefully and flat on the veneer and tap it soundly with a hammer, moving the block over the whole surface and tapping it to fasten the veneer tight.

Use a sanding block and about 150 grit sandpaper to trim the edges. Don't try to do it without the sanding block or you may run into some snags. Hold the block and sandpaper at an angle on the edge so the sandpaper doesn't contact the top surface, only the edge. The veneer will bend slightly so the sandpaper will wear through the veneer at the edge and the excess will drop off. On the front and back sand back and forth with the grain and on the ends sand up and down at an angle so there isn't any chance that you might touch the surface and sand across grain.

When it's all laid down and trimmed, just sand the surface lightly with 220 grit sandpaper and it's ready to finish.

If you need more information the procedure is the same as that given in our Kitchen Cabinet Refacing Section

If you're looking for Halloween decorating ideas, here's a good one. My 7 year old granddaughter, Jacqui, who has gorgeous long blonde hair clear down to there, who is very crafty and has been a computer whiz since she was three (heh, heh) just brought in her latest creation, a black cat tissue box cover that is reusable and slips on and off.