French Polishing and Enamelling | Page 3

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 quantity 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 classes 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, Vandyke 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
class 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-class 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 quantity 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
analogous 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