FLOWING THE FINISHING COATS.
To accomplish high grade finishing, certain varnish room conditions must prevail. The varnish room must have plenty of light, ventilation, warmth, and dryness of atmosphere. Cleanliness must abound;—personal cleanliness, room cleanliness, and cleanliness of stock and tool equipment. Ventilation and light have already been alluded to. To sweep the varnish room floor, first profusely sprinkle with well dampened sawdust, and beginning at one side sweep in a windrow. Do not use much water upon the varnish room floor, unless it should chance to be a perfectly tight floor and fit to be mopped out occasionally. Then the mopping out should occur upon days when there is to be no varnishing done in the department. A thermometer to register the heat and a hygrometer to register the humidity should be inseparable inmates of the varnish room.
A cupboard set in even with the wall or partition of the room should contain clean cups, strainer, dusters, along with the brushes in their air-tight keepers. Maintain a uniform temperature of from 75° to 80° Fahr.
Insist upon the surfaces and the varnish to be applied to them being of the same degree of temperature. In this way only will varnish work at its best.
Remove the stopper from the varnish can a short time prior to beginning to varnish. This allows for the escape of certain gases generated in the varnish can.
Although the varnish maker may declare his varnishes do not need straining it is really the safer rule to strain all the finishing varnish before using. A majority of finishers in our best shops persist in the practice. Patent strainers are now on the market adopted for this very purpose. Cheese cloth, cut in squares and drawn over funnel-shaped tins, serves as cheap and quickly arranged strainers.
Be thorough and painstaking in dusting. After the first dusting go over the surface with a piece of silk. Next, give all spots rubbed through, or which promise to show badly under the varnish, a dash of color, immediately slicking these color patches over with a small piece of cotton rag. Now varnish the inside of the body, having previously, of course, rubbed or mossed off this part of the job, as the desired quality of the finish may dictate, and dusted it carefully. The inside surface being finished, again dust the outside surface. Then for the final dusting take a round or oval duster, kept expressly for the purpose, and, moistening the hollow of the left hand with a little finishing varnish, flick the point of the duster over this to furnish it with a dust attraction property, after which proceed at once to dust carefully the surface to be varnished.
Thermometer—The varnish room watch dog.
The surface now being ready to finish, remove the brushes from the keeper, fill the varnish cup one-third full of the strained varnish, and follow this modus operandi, assuming, for example, the job to be of the piano box pattern: With the 1-inch badger hair brush lay the varnish along the bottom of the main panel, then across both ends, and lastly, along the top, taking in the seat riser while flowing the top edge. Then with the 2 1/2-inch brush flow, not brush, the varnish over the main surface space. Hold the brush, in flowing, rather flat. Keep it well charged with varnish, and pass it lightly and with a steady stroke from one end of the panel to the other, applying and laying off with horizontal strokes of the brush. From the brush held and directed in this way the varnish flows full and rich upon the surface, the distribution being more even and uniform, and less cross brushing becoming, therefore, assured. When the finishing brush is held at a steep angle, or in such a way that the points of the bristles are forced to mainly do the work, the varnish is whipped into motion to a harmful extent, requiring thereby more manipulation with the brush to get it evenly placed, and consequently destroying some of its natural fullness and brilliancy. The chief aim of the carriage finisher is to so first flow his varnish that the minimum outlay of cross brushing and dressing up will suffice, to the end that the varnish may be disturbed as little as possible, thus securing that depth of lustre and mirror-like effects so greatly cherished by all first-class finishers.
In varnishing piano style bodies and surfaces of close kith and kin to such, flow at least one side and an end before cross brushing and laying off. The varnish, by this method, is given time to take on a bit of "tack," as it were, and in cross brushing a less quantity is removed than would be the case if cross brushing were to follow directly upon completion of flowing the panel. After cross brushing and laying off, "catch up" the edges and all other places where the varnish is liable to start into a run or an overflow.
In varnishing surreys, phaetons, and jobs of that order, and larger, the varnisher should determine the amount of space he may flow before returning to cross brush, by the working qualities of his varnish, room temperature, and the prevailing circumstance at the time of varnishing.
Varnish Strainer.
Published by permission of "The Carriage Monthly."
After cross brushing, go over the panel but once in laying off. As before stated, and as expert carriage finishers everywhere will assert, the less brushing and disturbing of varnish, once it is flowed on the surface, the finer the body and brilliancy of the finish.
To become an expert body finisher the workman should possess varnish intelligence. He should know how to keep cool; be an absolute stranger to varnish fright, never lacking for confidence or ability to successfully meet and master emergencies as they arise. The art of varnishing cannot be acquired in a day, or an hour, or simply by a studious perusal of carefully worded directions. These serve as a working draft, but must be supplemented by long-continued practice, and, in case of carriage body finishing, coupled with a natural aptitude for the work.