Hardwood Finishing

Some manufacturers make prepared grain ing grounds in paste form of white lead tinted to the shade supposed to be the proper one for the wood indicated by the label. These pre pared grounds are satisfactory enough for ordi nary commercial graining, and are useful where the painter who prepares the ground is unable to mix the proper color. Where high-class graining is to be done, however, it is best to have the grainer give the last ground coat, at least.

Many of the washable distemper colors con tain alkalies which act on the subsequent coats of oil color and varnish, and their use cannot be recommended. Moreover, they possess another disadvantage in common with a priming of glue size, that if moisture attacks the work from be hind, the paint will lose its hold and peel off from the wood, carrying all the subsequent coats with it.

The colors used in graining are all trans parent or semi-transparent in their nature, such as raw and burnt sienna, raw and burnt umber, and Vandyke brown, and must be carefully selected and ground very fine.

In graining with oil colors, the thinner is different from that used in ordinary painting, pure beeswax dissolved in turpentine being added to the linseed oil, turpentine, and driers used for ordinary oil painting. The beeswax is used to give a certain stiffness to the color and prevent it from running together in the subse quent operations. For certain woods, where greater stiffness of the color is desired, the addi tion of about an ounce of megilp to the gallon of oil color is required. This is a gelatinous com pound of linseed oil and mastic varnish, which is used to increase the density of the color with out affecting its shade.

In water-color graining the thinners may be either clear water if the color is ground in a binding medium such as glue, or one-third to one-half of stale beer mixed with clear water. In place of beer, one-third vinegar with a little sugar may be used; and some grainers use skimmed milk as a thinner.

Besides brushes of several varieties, grainers use rubber, leather, cork, or steel combs, the selvedge edge of a piece of straw matting, a rag, a sponge, and a check roller formed of a series of zinc disks. In addition to these, one of the most useful and effective tools employed by the grainer, especially in imitating quartered oak and other woods showing large light spaces, is the end of the thumb. For the imitation of cer

tain kinds of wood, specially prepared crayons are employed, but the work done with these is apt to look crude and harsh unless skilfully blended.

Operation of Graining. The first operation in graining is termed rubbing in, and consists in covering the wood evenly with a coat of the proper color. This must be done very skilfully. It requires years of practice to "rub in" prop erly, and this part of the work should not be entrusted to the ordinary journeyman painter, but should be left to the grainer's assistant.

After the graining color has been rubbed in, the next operation—in those portions of the work that are to be left with plain grains or are to be the background for oak quarterings is combing out, which consists in removing the color in stripes, more or less regular, according to the figure of the work to be imitated, by means of the teeth of a comb, which pushes the color to one side. In some cases the teeth of a comb are covered with a rag. In natural wood the dark lines are the pores or open portions of the grain, and the grainers must exercise great care to prevent the work from having a ridgy appear ance. The next thing to do in graining oak is wiping out the heart grains by means of a rag wiped around the thumb nail. The quarterings are wiped out with a rag wrapped around the end of the thumb. Some grainers use a rubber roller marked with indentations formed some what like the heart growths of oak. By draw ing this down over the panel, revolving it in the hands as it is pulled downward, the grain of oak is imitated very rapidly. Variations are made by turning the roller quickly or more slowly, the latter producing figures of much greater length. While these rubber rollers are very useful for the cheaper class of commercial graining, work done with them has consider able sameness and can hardly be called the highest class.

After the work is dry, any first-class job of graining must be overgrained, which produces the fine darker lines of the grain that show in the high lights. This is done by means of a wide, flat camel's-hair brush, which is divided into a series of narrow pencils by means of a comb held in the left hand. Skilful overgrain ing produces a very close imitation of the natu ral wood, but in cheaper work it is often omitted.