Looking for hand finishing tips

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StevenG
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Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by StevenG »

Good morning folks

I've got a guy looking to have something finished to match some existing items in his home. I've attached a pic for reference.

Would I be right in thinking that a simple walnut stain won't be enough. To get the correct end result with paint should I use a red followed with a black wash +wax. I'm not sure what's the best route to take. :?

Cheers :)
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by fusionframer »

Don't think the image uploaded.
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by StevenG »

fusionframer wrote:Don't think the image uploaded.
What makes you think that?? :Slap: :Slap: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by StevenG »

Hi again, I didn't attach the image in the original post on purpose - I just wanted to see who was paying attention - Fusionframer wins the Internet today. I now present to you the door thing in all it's walnut glory.....
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by vintage frames »

Where to start? There are two ways of doing this. The first is the wood finishing route and the second the painted effect way. Someone like Prospero is well experienced to advise on paint effects.
To recreate the colour in wood finishing, then the best timber to use is obeche and the most accessible finishes are those from Liberon.
Mix some of their Van Dyke crystals with some Walnut water stain. Make it as dark as you like and slap on several coats if needs be.
Then paint on a coat of french polish using a flat watercolour brush.
Rub this finish down with some 0000 wire wool and ignore the colour you see!
Now decant some french polish into a dish and tint it with some Walnut Spirit stain and then stir in some dry earth pigment Brown Umber. I say some - you just have to test it out on a scrap sample. The Brown Umber will be giving a more solid appearance.
Thin this mix with a little meths and paint over the previous finish.
Give then another coat of un-tinted french polish. Now you can rub on your wax with the same wire wool.
I'm afraid all this takes a little practice!
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by Not your average framer »

So, are we just trying to get the representative colour of walnut, or does it need to look like real walnut? To my way of thinking, not everybody knows what real walnut looks like. In the traditional part of the furniture industry, you could encounter different grain effects from walnut according to how the original wood had been cut in it's alignment to the grain.

It is true that there are some on this forum, who can fake the grain of different woods and make them almost as convincing as the real thing and then there are the rest of us. For most of us the actual choice of wood we choose to start with, may be a good start to getting a really representative looking walnut and assuming that the customer is not expecting something which has any kind of figuring, then something with a nice close grain which does not produce unsightly blotches when stained will be where to start.

For me, this would probably be limewood, but please take care how you stain it. Limewood can take stain very readily and if you have stained more heavily than you wanted to, then you may wish that you had started with a weaker coat first. It is possible to block the pores on inherently blotching woods such as obeche, or tulipwood using something else before staining the wood the colour you are wanting, but it is very hard to mimic a good quality variety of wood in this way without at least some prior experience of how to do this.

A good general purpose stain medium to start with is van dyke crystals. You need to dilute them in boiling water and fine tune the actual colour required with waterbased pigments as required. There is a way of getting good results by avoiding doing too much with each layer. There are plenty of people on the forum who use van dyke crytals on a regular basis and they are all worth listening to. Don't expect to be an expert overnight, but you will get there more quickly than you are probably thinking with a little time and practice.

While I have been typing Vintage Frames has already replied and no doubt Fusion Framer will have things to say as well. Both of these framers are ideally placed to advise you how to get traditional results using the traditional methods and to be honest this is probably the way that matters if you want a proper wood finish. Yes, you can do it with paints and I do so sometimes, but there is a big difference. If you want a real wood grain finish, then go for the real thing! BTW, take your time and enjoy doing this and you will learn some valuable lessons along the way.
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by vintage frames »

Dumb of me to forget mentioning Mark, NYAF. He's the man, and always willing to give a more thoughtful response to the problem. I'd only question his choice of using lime-wood. If you're asking this question on handfinishing, then trying to find limewood mouldings is a bit of an ask. I always find obeche is a good universal base timber.
As regards staining difficulties - it's the same old problem. No-one seems to know the difference between stains and pigments.
Stains are just dyes. Keep adding them to wood and the colour will just get darker and darker as it absorbs more of the light. To give the wood some "body" you need to spread a thin layer of coloured powder on the surface. We call this powder, pigments. They reflect back the light and gives your wood a more solid appearance. Wood finishers use the range of "earth pigments" - all browns, from yellowy brown to red-y brown. Brown Umber is in middle.
This is all basic stuff, mind you. In the old days a framing apprentice would have to know all this stuff by heart, before being allowed to progress beyond making the tea and cleaning the toilets.
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by Not your average framer »

I've still got some lengths of quarter sawn limewood mouldings and the visible grain on the front face and the outside face is very fine and in line with the length of the mouldings and it is very easy to get that grain to show well. Another wood which also was great for simulating fine grained woods was ramin, maybe not everyone would think the same as me, but I loved ramin. It could be made to look really fabulous, sadly obeche has replaced ramin for so many profiles, but for me stained obeche just has not got anything special about it. I'm probably getting a bit too carried away about how things once were, but there's a way that the grain in a nice hardwood catches the light through a really transparent wood stain. It's not just about the colour and the shade, but there's a depth to the finish that lives.

The old craftsmen understood this and could get the right tone, but also that lit from within glow that you see on beautiful old furniture. I've got a collection of old paint and pigments charts, from various suppliers and not all manufacturers paints have the same ingredients. The difference can be seen in different paint manufacturers versions of the same artist paints and pigments transparency ratings. I'm talking about the difference between transparent, semi-transparent, semi-opaque and opaque pigments. Transparency is not just a technical aspect that has little relevence, it's the difference between dull and lifeless and bringing the woodgrain back to life. I'm not joking, a lot has gone out of the window as natural materials have been replaced by synthetic materials to save bit of money and even create a bit more durability.

I'm still one of the old school, who likes a little bit of danish oil added to his shellac finishes. You can't add any more that a couple of teaspoons full to a half litre bottle of ready mixed french polish without really messing up the drying time, but it's one of the ingredients that's a step along the right road to getting that lovely aged furniture glow. Home made oil based wood stains seem to add just a little bit of transparency to the very surface of the wood itself. There's a lovely oil paint colour called Indian yellow and another called Indian brown and from right suppliers they also have this beautiful underlying transparent pinkiness when used as to make home made wood stains. I like to thin them down using real turpentine, it not only dries oil paints faster than white spirit, but it penetrates into the wood in a way that looks very natural.

I use quite a lot of acrylic finishes where appropriate, because it's a quick and easy finish for some many general purpose frames and mouldings, but it's not the same when it comes to making the most of natural hardwoods. It's a long time ago now, but for a while I used to repair small items of damaged antique furniture and was taught why modern synthetic finishing materials could not even come close to matching the original traditional finishing materials and techniques. It's a big difference and both antique dealers and antique collectors can spot the repair straightaway if it's not done right.

I spent years trawling round auction sales room looking at examples of beautifully finished antiqiue furniture so I could learn what the real thing looked like and on the look out for all sorts of odd things, including the larger ground glass bottle stoppers so that I could do authentic burnished and laquered wood finishes. Sandpaper may help to flatten down and shape wood to the right shape, but to make the wood shine before staining and finishing took a little bit of magic. There's a lot of friction and pressure goes into some of these lovely old wood finishes and the real quality hardwood are great when burnished with a really hard smooth surface, before finishing.

It's not true that these lovely old antique looking wood finishes are not possible anymore, lots of old timers in the antiques trade still do this stuff, even now. I'm a mere youngster compared to the guys who helped get me started. I tell people I know, about this and most of them can hardly see the point, you show them and their amazed. Just about nobody wants to keep this stuff going, everything is done by machinery now and that's that!
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by prospero »

If you are staining/polishing you have to have wood with a nice grain pattern to start with. There are some plain
mouldings in such woods as walnut, cherry, maple, etc, but the range of profile is limited. Also, you often have to
be selective to get a nice even effect on a frame. This can mean using lots of moulding.
Obeche/Ayous type woods have a very bland grain pattern - if at all. But they do make a good base for a painted finish.
The way I do it is the lay on a solid basecoat, usually quite light and lay a dragged wash over it.
Two ways. You can cut rails slightly oversize and finish them prior to joining, or join the frame and then finish it.
The first way is easier if you have a 'wild' grain pattern. The second way is a bit more tricky, but I tend to do it like that.
On a flat(ish) profile you can mask to mitre lines which actually looks quite effective.

For the paint I use artist's acrylic. You have to work fast with the wash though and work it as it dries. Once it's dry, you
can't re-wet it. It's needs a bit of practice.

For colours A basecoat of Yellow Ochre + Raw Umber + a dab of White makes a good combination for warm woody tones.
The wash maybe Burnt Umber + Raw umber + a dab of Black. You have to experiment with proportions, but that's a good starting point.

When the basecoat is thoroughly dry, flood the wash on liberally. Work it round until the whole surface is well wetted.
Dab off any big puddles. Then get a dry brush and stroke it along the grain. Keep doing this as it dries.
** Get all your tackle ready before you start. If you hesitate, parts will dry before you stroke them and you have to start again
with a fresh basecoat. Don't try to re-wet dried parts.

A good dragging brush is the cheapo disposable sort. Natural bristles and a bit rough. These are ideal for this job.


If you want more figured grain you have to faff about a bit more. There are flexible plastic graining combs and all sorts of
weird brushes for this. Again a bit of practice experimentation on scrap bits is called for.

That's how I do it anyway. Thing is, with a painted grain finish you do have control. With staining wood you can alter the colour
and enhance the grain but you are stuck with the existing grain pattern.

Hope that's some help. :P
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by prospero »

Here's one I did earlier..... :D

Image

Image
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by prospero »

This is a faux birds-eye maple. I think it actually looks better than a new frame with real verneer.

I cocked up a bit because the mitre line is covered. Should have masked it to make the join evident.


Image


bigger image here> http://petrbnsfineart.com/images/mockmaple_big.jpg
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by baughen »

You don't indicate the size of frame or budget. A possible alternative may be to use real walnut wood and get the moulding routered to the required profiling. Real walnut would be expensive but you have to weigh that up against the time experimenting and completing the painting/staining/finishing etc. job.
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by fusionframer »

I would go the vintage frames method of obeche and van dyck crystals. One thing to be careful of when staining is to make sure that you need to avoid getting glue on the surfaces being stained. If you do get any when pinning thw mitres, wipe of with damp cloth and still sand well. If uou don't, the stain won't take and you can be left with light marks.

Once stained, it is trial and error. French polish is your best bet as vintage frames says, but it does dry quickly so you need to work quickly. Otherwise, you could experiment with a coat of burnt umber acrylic that you wipe off quickly afterwards.

When you come to finishing, rather than using neutral wax, try different ones. If you think the finish needs a bit of a reddish touch, victorian mahogany wax will do think. Antique oak will darken it a shade but add a bit more depth.

I used a antique pine on a dark stained frame last week as it did what i wanted to the finish.

As mentioned, a real wanut finish may be possible. If it was a relatively simple profile, i would run some walnut through my spindle moulder. Walnut is quite expensive, but given time to get a good finish on obeche, may make walnut an option.

I would be happy to run some through if it was a square profile and post if not too much for cost, but not till after easter as i have had surgery a couple of weeks back and still can't walk much. I make my own wide oak mouldings quite often. It is quite quick to do, i am lucky to have a thicknesser that is calibrated to 1/10 mm.

Btw, when you stain a frame, stain a few offcuts to use for experimenting as you go.

Cheers

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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by Not your average framer »

Personally I don't much like staining obeche, but if I choose to stain obeche, I tend to apply some watered down emulsion paint. Rub it in and wipe as much of as possible, it's a bit like rubbing it dry, except you don't allow it enough time to dry. Then without waiting for the emulsion paint to dry, I apply a coat of waterbased stain, the first coat of waterbased stain gets wiped down to remove any that's too thick and then brushed out as thin as possible. I never think that it looks like the real thing and sure I can do it, but I know what the real thing looks like and to me this ain't it.

I don't like thick coats of stain and I'm a bit wasteful like this, but as people who came on my hand finishing coarse will confirm there is a fair bit of wiping things on and off, in my modus operadi. I like to work fast and this give me a speedy way of doing things and I don't deny that quite a bit of paint on bits of kitchen tissue get wiped off and put straight into the waste bin. I do produce my own grained finishes, but I don't try to duplicate real wood finishes. Instead, I tend to do a dragged finish sort of thing, which is a bit like a wood finish after a bit of washing, dragging and distressing.

It is what it is and people like it, but passable fake wood finishes are not really my speciality, finishes based on a woodgrain effect is something else altogether and yes, I am much happier doing stuff like that, but it's not really the real thing. Here's one that I knocked up a while ago at the start of this thread.

https://www.theframersforum.com/viewtop ... d+finishes

Also while looking at this thread, have a look at the image of a lovely imitation wood finish by Geoff Peach contained in the same thread. In case you are wondering, I don't know how to do proper fake wood finishes like that. Fontunately, I've got plenty of old lengths of moulding with real woodgrains and when I need a woodgrain in a finish, I use a real woodgrain under a transparent, or semi-transparent finish.
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by Jules007 »

I really like the example in your link Mark and Geoff Peach's faux wood is excellent. This is something I would love to try out but it all looks like it takes ages to do. How do you possibly charge for this?
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by StevenG »

Hi guys

These are incredible responses with fantastic pieces of advice. There's several things I should say... Yes, I was totally unaware of the difference between stains and pigments - interesting topic. I've bought this .... https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00 ... UTF8&psc=1 to do some testing with. The actual moulding it's to be used with is the plain wood version of ... http://www.qualitywoodmouldings.com/pro ... -moulding/

I have different waxes here already so I'll do a bit of experimenting.

The size is around 48x27 (inches) and they are working'ish to a budget - it probably would be easier to source some real walnut and have it milled but I guess the expense for that would scare them off :( (I am guessing though)

The offer by fusionframer was really generous & I do appreciate that very much.

The customer wants this by early next week so I don't really have much time - but here goes nothing :)

Thanks again (as always) for the support
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by vintage frames »

You bought the right stuff - van dyke crystals. If you want to get this done in a hurry, then dissolve enough crystals in hot water to make a dark stain of almost oily consistency. Paint that onto the wood and ignore the little white flacks of grain that might show.
Seal that over with a coat of shellac ( any sort)
Buy a tube of student grade Burnt Umber acrylic and dilute this to a thin paint.
Paint it on and again if you diluted it too much. Should be dark but transparent.
Another coat of shellac and you're done - save for the wax.
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by StevenG »

vintage frames wrote:You bought the right stuff - van dyke crystals. If you want to get this done in a hurry, then dissolve enough crystals in hot water to make a dark stain of almost oily consistency. Paint that onto the wood and ignore the little white flacks of grain that might show.
Seal that over with a coat of shellac ( any sort)
Buy a tube of student grade Burnt Umber acrylic and dilute this to a thin paint.
Paint it on and again if you diluted it too much. Should be dark but transparent.
Another coat of shellac and you're done - save for the wax.

You make it sound simple :) OK, call me crazy but I'm giving a whirl :sweating: :)
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by Not your average framer »

Does it sound too easy for you? People have been using van dyke crystals for centuries, I don't think that there anything to beat it and yes, it is really simple and easy. Try it, you won't look back! It's also very cheap and the usual pack quantity lasts almost for ever. You can't go wrong and you don't need an amazing level of skill to get a great result.
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Re: Looking for hand finishing tips

Post by StevenG »

Not your average framer wrote: You can't go wrong and you don't need an amazing level of skill to get a great result.

Sounds like my kind of challenge :)
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