Newsletter
February 15 2003

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Quick tip

If you have a window screen with a small hole in it, just big enough to let a fly or other insect in, but not big enough to work up the ambition to replace the whole screen, just dab a coat of clear finish on it the next time you're putting clear finish on something. It should last for a while until you poke your finger through the screen to see if the clear mending is working ok and is strong.

Hygrometers

After the last newsletter I received the following email from Sherrie VandePutte of Frank VandePutte Wood Floors.

- - - "I have to disagree with you about the quality of hygrometers. We are wood flooring contractors. I purchased many different hygrometers and lined them up together on my kitchen table for many day. I found the analog models often varied as much as 30%, whereas the digital models stayed within three percentage points of each other. Photo is available at our web site Hygrometer Test" - - -

Since I'm a natural born curious sort it made me wonder how we'd managed for six or seven hundred years before the advent of the digital hygrometer and I found some real interesting stuff, such as hygrometers have been made from the beards of bearded oats and from human hair (mainly blonde hair).

This little fact of historical significance of blonde hair may ease the threat of bruises I got when I made a few comments a few days ago when it took my wife and daugter (both blondes) to change the dining room light bulbs. I won't go into the details, but my granddaughter (also blonde) is still telling the story with gales of laughter. We have a lot of fun around our house.

It seems that analog hygrometers ship uncalibrated and it's necessary to calibrate them yourself. I've bought several hygrometers throughout the years and I don't recall ever reading that on the package. I got the information from several cigar aficionado sites and as fussy as they are about the humidity of their cigars they must be on to something. Most of the sites had identical information and it would be hard to tell who had the information first, so I decided to link to about.com's information. You can calibrate an analog hygrometer with a wet towel or a small amount of salt paste.

Thanks to Sherrie we know some more about hygrometers now. Since humidity is every bit as important to our furniture and wood floors and other wood around the house, as it is to cigar folk, it really would be a good idea to have one. Remember your comfort too.

Measure for picture frames

French polishing (number 3)

First thing we'd better explain the cut of shellac. A one pound cut means one pound of shellac flakes dissolved in one gallon of denatured alcohol, a one and a half pound cut is one and a half pounds of shellac flakes dissolved in a gallon of denatured alcohol and so on.

A gallon of shellac will go a long way, so it's better to mix a pint at a time, which covers a good size area too. Since there are eight pints in a gallon and 16 ounces in a pound you'll need to dissolve two ounces of shellac flakes in a pint of denatured alcohol to get a one pound cut, four ounces of shellac flakes in a pint of denatured alcohol for a two pound cut and so on.

The flakes will take about 24 hours to dissolve, or if you pulverize the flakes and warm the denatured alcohol in a container of warm tap water the shellac dust will dissolve fairly quickly. Never, never heat denatured alcohol directly and don't heat it on a stove or with open flame, such as a propane torch. Denatured alcohol is extremely flamable.

Be sure to mix your shellac in a container that can be sealed tightly and put a sticker on it with the date you dissolve the flakes.

If you use store bought shellac be sure to check the pound cut on the container. A one and one half to two pound cut is easiest to use, so you can add denatured alcohol to the ready mixed shellac for the amount necessary to get that cut.

Now we can start the bodying. You'll need your pad, shellac, an eyedropper for applying olive oil to the pad and olive oil. Load the inner wad of gauze with shellac and squeeze most of it out, then put the wad inside the square of t-shirt or similar material and fold the corners up. Pat the pad against the palm of your hand to disperse the shellac evenly on the surface of the pad. It's best if you wear vinyl or Nitrile gloves, because shellac is sticky stuff. Apply two or three drops of olive oil on the face of the pad and start the bodying session. You need to apply the pad to the surface in a gliding motion, holding the pad above the surface and come in with a sweeping motion onto the surface, then at the end of the motion leave the surface at an angle. You'll be applying very minute layers of shellac and shellac dries quickly and is solvent to itself, so if you were to come down directly onto the surface with your pad or stop a sweeping motion with the pad on the surface it would leave an imprint of your pad on the surface

Work on a small area at a time, one or two square feet. Practice the sweeping motion for a while, then work your movement into a circular motion and work into a figure eight motion. Using a figure eight will insure that everything is covered in all directions. You'll see a film of shellac behind the pad, as you move the pad along, for a short time before it sets up. Start your actions with a light pressure and as you progress in layers increase the pressure, not real hard because that would tend to remove what you've already put on, but just a good substantial pressure, which will insure hardness and shine. You should end up with about 100 minute layers of shellac over the whole surface. There will need to be six to eight of these bodying sessions during the whole process.

If the pad feels like it's starting to drag you can add two or three more drops of olive oil with the dropper. When you move to a new area or when you can't see a film of shellac being added to the surface behind the pad, dip the inner pad into the shellac and squeeze it mostly out, put it back in it's cover and pat it against the palm of your hand to distribute it evenly. Don't have too much shellac in the pad at any time. Cover the whole area of the surface you're working on the same way. If you get too much shellac in the pad or if it tends to distribute to the outer edges of the pad, squeeze the pad in a cloth to remove the excess and distribute it more evenly.

Next time we'll go into stiffing, spiriting and a little on filling with pumice, which should pretty well cover french polishing.

Faux Finishes - Distressed

I get a lot of requests for information about how to do the Shabby Chic® style, which is a registered trademark, so we'll just give them that plug as an explanation, then we'll call the procedures by other names.

I would strongly advise against doing any of the following procedures on antiques, as they would loose their antique value for the next hundred years.

About 50 years ago my parents relegated the wooden kitchen drop leaf table to the back porch and put a shiny chrome dinette set in it's place. The new table had a formica top that looked like gray and white marble and vinyl seats and backs on the chairs that matched the table top.

My mother wanted the oak buffet to match the table and chairs and she was one to think that anything could be done if you wanted to do it bad enough and she eyed the oak buffet for a while. (A quick aside, 50 years ago the buffet was just an old piece of furniture and I wasn't too interested in antiques then, because I was at an age where I had discovered girls and to this day they still scare me) Anyway, my mother wanted the oak buffet to match the dinette set, so she painted it gray to match the gray in the table top, then she poured white paint into a paper bag and splooped it around on the gray painted buffet and gently feathered the white paint and lo and behold we had a matching dinette set with a buffet.

The worn look has been popular for years and probably will stay forever popular.

You can do a worn look with one color and down to bare looking wood or use two or more colors for some pretty dramatic effects.

To have the worn to wood look you need to decide where the wear should be, such as edges and if there are doors and drawers, open and shut them a few times to see where your fingernails might wear a finish away and any places you might accidentally kick the finish.

To have a worn to wood look you'll need to sand the existing finish clear to the wood where you want the wear to be, then seal the surface with a clear sealer to protect the wood. Shellac or clear acrylic is good for sealing.

Put two or three coats of sealer on letting each coat dry completely before applying the next, then sand lightly with 220 grit sandpaper.

Paint your piece of furniture with your choice of color. A water base paint is easier to use and less messy to work with.

While the paint is still wet take a water dampened sponge and wipe the paint away to the sealer coat in the areas you chose to look worn. Keep a container of clean water handy so you can rinse the excess paint out of the sponge after each wipe-off of paint.

After you get the most appealing appearance feather the edges of the paint, where you wiped, with a dry brush until it looks worn rather than wiped.

You can stop with the painted surface or after letting the paint cure for several days you can apply a coat of clear acrylic for added protection.

This link will take you to several Clear Finishes and some good Books about finishes and finishing. More on distressed finishes next time.

Mood and color

The color you choose for your furniture piece may be decided by your mood at the time of your decision and can effect your mood later. Have you ever bought something, making your decision largely on the color of the object, then put it away and later after getting it back out wondered why in the world you ever bought it?

Since we're going to have several installments concerning colors of furniture pieces we'll get into the phenomena of our color choices being decided by moods and moods being altered by color choices.

Colors effecting moods have been studied for years and the colors have been grouped in three categories active passive and neutral.

The effect of color is important in choosing the right color for matting pictures too. For instance if you have a picture of your child with a group of other children at a school picnic and your child is wearing something making a little splash of red, among the myriad colors in the picture, you can make your child stand out by using a double mat with the inner mat a red color as close to the red in the picture as possible and an outer mat color compatible with the red, the colors in the picture and your decor. The thin line of red around the picture will make the red in the picture jump out bringing your child along with it. It works with other colors too.

Volumes have been written about the effect of color and we'll see if we can condense some of the information and include it in the newsletter to give some ideas for furniture decorating and picture framing.

Quick Tip

To give a picture frame just an extra touch of class and enough difference in appearance to have a redecorating effect you can spritz the frame with gold. Use masking tape and newspaper to completely cover the glass area inside the frame to save a lot of work taking the picture out.

Lay the picture frame down on the floor or ground. Be sure to protect anything nearby that you don't want spritzed and set the frame on newspapers or a drop cloth. Hold a can of Gold spray paint or for an even different effect, a can of Gold spray paint with glitter about three or four feet away and give short bursts of spray paint and let it mist onto the frame. It'll give an essence of gold rather than a full gold appearance. Be sure to practice spritzing on a piece of paper or cardboard first to get the feel of it. You can also highlight areas with a Gold leafing pen Actually, you aren't limited to gold, any color can be spritzed onto another.

Stripping

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