MEDIUM-LOW FURNITURE FINISHING MATERIALS

Traditional finishing materials are the materials that are traditionally used in furniture finishing in early time when furniture industry start to finish the furniture, when coating as finishing material has not been found yet. At that time spray gun which is now become the most popular equipment to apply the finishing materials still has not been used for the furniture finishing process. Finishing materials are applied in a traditional way such: pad, dipped, brush or wipe.
Now although most of the finishing processes are done with modern materials and using modern equipment, but apparently there is also demand for a furniture with traditional finishing materials. Because the traditional finishing with traditional material produce a unique appearance that can not be imitated exactly with modern finishing. Some traditional finishing materials that now used still used are: oil, wax, varnish and shellac.


The advantages of the other traditional finishing materials, is his simple application, does not special equipment and room. Therefore, those finishing materials, is good choice when the equipment and finishing facilities is not available and the desired quality of finishing is not too high.

1. Oil finish
Oil as a finishing material may be is the oldest. This finishing materials type is very easy and very simple in application and does not require a special finishing equipment and room. The furniture is brushed or dipped and wiped equally with rag or cloth. The finishing results is very natural, show the beauty of the wood with very alive and interesting look. The disadvantage is: oil finish almost does not form color, so the color is highly dependent of the basic colors and quality of the wood underneath. This finishing also very thin layer almost does not form film so can not provide the maximum protection to the wood underneath.
There are many names for this oil finish such as teak oil, danish oil, china oil, etc. Oil finish is made from extracted beans or trees (linseed oil), tung oil is made from extracted the seeds of a tung plant which is known in china, so also known as china oil. Oil plants can also be heated to a temperature 500 degrees Fahrenheit to increase gloss result and reduce drying time. Development of the next oil finish is then processed and mixed with resin to improve its quality and is known by the name of varnish.

2.Varnish.
Varnish is a finishing material that is made from oil with chemical processes using a mixture of the phenolic resin, alkyd and urethane. The oil used is the same type with oil that used for oil finish. Varnish will react with the hot air to produce a strong and elastic film. The drying time of this material is relatively long, up to 1 day for each layer application. Varnish is usually clear without any color, although can also be mixed with pigment to form a specific color. The application can brush or wipe, but now it can also be diluted with thinner and sprayed. Thinner that is used to thin this material is a kind of oil like turpentine or mineral spirit. Varnish will form a film on the surface, and will give protection to the wood underneath. The film thickness depend on the application times, so to get the thick film we need to apply varnish several times. The drying of every layer is very important, we have to make sure the previous layer is really dry before apply the next layer on it.

3. Wax finish
As the oil finish, wax will produce a very natural appearance with very soft and smooth surface. The most widely used wax is the wax obtained from the bee farm (beeswax), which will melt at a temperature about 140 degree Fahrenheit. Wax applications is very easy, brush or wipe evenly on the surface then cleaned with a cloth. The resulting surface is very unique: slippery and smooth, when being touched with very natural look. Wax is available in natural or colored, usually brown and black. Although wax is available with some color but the finished color produced by this materials is very limited. So the color and appearance that is produced depends on the color of wood underneath. Wax finish is also give only very small protection to the wood underneath.

4. Shellac (politur)
Approximately since 1820 until 1920 shellac is an extremely popular used as a finishing material for the wood before it is replaced by the coating. This finishing material provides a layer of film that be able to provide better protection than oil or wax finish. Shellac is basically have a yellowish color and when applied will produce a yellow color depending on how thick the layer of shellac on the wood surface. In the next development there is also available uncolored shellac (bleach shellac), which provided film without any color. The bleach shellac is use to finish natural or white color.
Shellac is made from natural resin produced by plants from India, shellac is available in the store in the chips form. The pieces need to solve in alcohol to make liquid form before applied to the surface of the wood. The application was originally by padding on the surface using cloth. The padding is repeat many times until get the desired thickness. The previous layer of shellac must be dry before the next application. The more application layer the thick film formed, the gloss will be generated and higher and the resulting color will darker or yellower. But now shellac is also possible to be sprayed by spray gun. By spray method the application is much faster and easily controlled to obtain the desired thickness.
The finishing layer get from shellac will provide sufficient protection to the wood underneath. The disadvantages of this material is that he requires long drying time for each application, the color selection and gloss is very limited and the difficulties in controlled. Now the finishing process with shellac is almost entirely replaced with the coating as a modern finishing material. Shellac is still used in the furniture industry especially because his application is simple. This material can applied with cloth without using special equipment and room. The other reason is because this material is save and almost does not make pollution to the environment.

SOURCE: http://www.wisnofurniturefinishing.com