Decorative Finishing
People have been applying various finished to the wood surface for ages for various reasons. Mainly to keep wood stable, and to enhance the way it looks. There are many different types and ways of finishing wood. Let’s divide this wide topic into two sections: Clear finish, where you can see wood grain through the finish, and painted finishes (decorative finish).
The variety of decorative finishes and effects that have been used on furniture through the ages is enormous. The most common are:
- Marbling
- Glazing
- Aging
- White washing
- Stenciling and striping
- Sponging
- Crackling
- Cerussing
French Polishing
French polishing is the technique of achieving high gloss finish from hand applied mixture of shellac and alcohols. It became very popular in the first quarter of the 19th century and is still frequently requested by our clients.
It is very time consuming process, producing the finest possible finish. We do not recommend using French polishing on a dining table, unless you are planning on sending for us once or twice an year.
Furniture Reconstruction
Quality of furniture made today is much worse than good furniture made 50-100 years ago. That is why it is very understandable that many of our customers want to accommodate the good quality pieces for the new spaces and homes. Besides the actual cabinet work (which is never easy) the most important part of this work is the design of the re-worked piece. Will it look odd? Out of place? Will it be obvious that the operation was done? That is never easy, but always achieved with a success.
We made King size beds out off Twin size, sink cabinets out of chest of drawers, added drawers and doors, converted doors into coffee tables, cut legs off, added different legs, and so on, and so on.
Strip and Refinishing
This is very common practice for newer pieces that have been badly damaged. It is definitely more cost effective to chemically remove old finish, stain and apply new finish than repair each scratch and dent, try to blend the repairs with the old finish to get the invisible repair.
Almost everything in our workshop starts with careful removal of all hardware and handles. The piece and hardware are tagged. Removal of old finish is done by hand. We do not use dip method because it is not safe for joints and veneers (there have been many debates over this topic, but this is our policy). After careful removal of the worn out finish we follow with appropriate sanding. Our stripping method does not remove patina color from wood. If not necessary we will not mechanically remove the wood patina.
Colors and finish type are agreed before we start the process. Customer picks the color which is applied after sanding has been finished. We prefer hand finishing, because it gives us more control over the entire process. French polishing, waxing, oiling, rubbing and padding are examples of hand finishes. Many times it is economically not suitable to hand finish the piece. In such cases we use new methods – applying new coatings with spray guns. Sprayed finishes can have “factory look”, or could be polished to high gloss, or rubbed to smoother, satin look.
Caning
The delicate appearance of a woven seat belies its durability, but eventually the cane becomes worn and breaks, and the seat must be replaced.
We offer different types of re-caning. Hand cane is time consuming – it can take up to 12 hours to weave a seat for a typical chair. Machine cane is simple, much less expensive, but looks are a bit different. With machine cane we loose that fine, detailed, clean look and have to put up with the spline – a thin strip of wood that holds machine cane panel in place.
All sizes of machine cane used in the past are still available today.
All patterns of hand cane are possible to re-create today.