The Framers Forum

@grahamdown
its cheapest from amazon.com or abebooks.co.uk

vintage frames wrote: ↑Tue 05 May, 2020 3:47 pm I was just thinking that this thread is getting a bit silly now but cleaver has pulled it back with a flourish!

How very dare you! I've never been accused of raising the tone in my life

Hope you are well Dermot, mate. You often pop into my mind when I watch 'Salvage Hunters, The Restorers' (filmed in Wales, of course).

That French polisher really knows his onions, doesn't he (probably knows his French onions, too)? I liked the tip I saw the other day about using blackboard paint (finished with French polish) to create an ebonised look that is a lot more 'forgiving' for rougher woods.

Stay well buddy,

Paul.

It is probably worth mentioning that not all makes of blackboard paints are produced from the same ingredients and some are much more durable than others. My local hardware shop sells an oil based blackboard paint, but I know that there is a casin based variety ans possibly other varieties as well. I have not been able to track down the casin based variety, but my experience of casin based paints, would suggest to me to be a very durable paint and one that rubs down well to produce a very fine surface, which should be a good base for under layers of shellac.

I like the casin based paints, also because they are good for priming wood with more difficult wood grains, that are sometimes very difficult to prevent the grain from showing through the paint, after sanding down and trying to get the smoothest possible finish. Not all paints and primers will necessarily sand down as well as each other and a lot of time can be wasted, trying to get the smoothest finish using a paint, or primer that just has not got a good sanding down characteristic.

I tend to mix up part used pots of paint, that ends up hanging around and will go to waste eventually if not used and make up my own basic primers. I like acrylic paint for some characteristics, but I like to mix the acrylic paint with Craig and Rose's chalky emulsion. The two together work very well for sanding down, or distressing, but I generally do a little bit of sanding down to remove any little nibs in the finish and finish off with my usualy mix of meths and cellulose thinners on a piece of kitchen tissue, which I throw away afterwards.

Cellulose thinners is very agressive, where as methalated sprirts has a lot less effect, so the meths is good for reducing the effect of the cellulose thinners to more managable level. It is for this reason that the level of cellulose thinners in the mix is a very small amount compared to the amount of meths in the mix. A 250ml bottle of meths usually has a little bit of space at the top of the bottle, when first bought and the amount of cellulose thinner to be added will only need to be a teaspoonful of two. I don't specifically measure a precise amount, but I've been doing it a while and when I come to use the solvent mix, I can add a little more if it is needed.

It's not super critical, once you have got the feel of it, but be careful not to over do the cellulose thinners at first. I tend to do things like this, by knowing how much to mix of one thing into another. It's probably an experience thing. Somebody at a place where I worked, referred to how I worked as bucket chemistry and that's pretty much what it is. There is not a super critical ratio, it's much less critical than that and after a while, it just becomes instinctive and something that you just know how much.

Great information as always, Mark. Many thanks, mate.