Any ideas for a base coat primer, which I can easilly wire brush a fine grain into as part of a new finishing iidea.

Get help and framing advice from the framing community
Post Reply
Not your average framer
Posts: 11014
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Any ideas for a base coat primer, which I can easilly wire brush a fine grain into as part of a new finishing iidea.

Post by Not your average framer »

I'm trying to find an idea base coat primer which is of the right sort of material to easily wire brush a fine grain into before producing a grained and distressed finish. I've tried a lot of what I thought were the right ideas, but somethings just don't work as well as I was hoping.

Thanks,
Mark.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
vintage frames
Posts: 1349
Joined: Tue 12 Jun, 2012 6:05 pm
Location: West Wales
Organisation: https://www.dermotmcardle.co.uk/
Interests: Making picture frames
Contact:

Re: Any ideas for a base coat primer, which I can easilly wire brush a fine grain into as part of a new finishing iidea.

Post by vintage frames »

There is an easy way to do this - but you might not want to hear it.
Traditional rabbit skin glue gesso.
Paint on a couple of coats. Leave to dry. Sand back a bit.
Now paint on some cold water, let it soak in - and now you can scrape in with a wire brush to create whatever effects you wish.
And of course, my free video tells you how to make the stuff.
Affordable Gilding Course for Professional Framers-https://www.dermotmcardle.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/dermotmcardle/
User avatar
prospero
Posts: 11492
Joined: Tue 05 Jun, 2007 4:16 pm
Location: Lincolnshire

Re: Any ideas for a base coat primer, which I can easilly wire brush a fine grain into as part of a new finishing iidea.

Post by prospero »

Have you tried ripple paint? You can't really wirebrush it, but while it's wet you can drag though it with a suitable
implement - stiff brush, comb, fork... To get a really deep texture add a bit of dry pigment, but not too much.
If you keep dragging it as it dries you can churn it up and get a really good rough wood texture.

:D
Watch Out. There's A Humphrey About
Not your average framer
Posts: 11014
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Any ideas for a base coat primer, which I can easilly wire brush a fine grain into as part of a new finishing iidea.

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Dermot,

I had thought that gesso would be a bit too hard to get a good result brushing it with a wire brush, but I had not considered wetting it with water, before brushing it with the wire brush. That all makes perfect sense now. Thanks.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Not your average framer
Posts: 11014
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Any ideas for a base coat primer, which I can easilly wire brush a fine grain into as part of a new finishing iidea.

Post by Not your average framer »

Thanks Peter,

Brushing ripple coat while it dries, is not really the effect that I'm after, but thanks anyway. I've tried various different primers and most of them don't brush very nicely with a wire brush. I thought that chalky emulsion would be good, but it's not all that good at all It's actually quite difficult to understand why different primers don't work. I can get the effect brushing some types of wood, but the brushes that I am using only seem to work at their best when they are completely brand new after quite a short while the wire brushes seem to lose their bite and the graining effect does not look the same. My assumption is that the end of the wire filaments in the brush must be losing the sharpness of their cutting edge.

I am assuming that I'm going to have to grain some obeche with these wire brushes and just throw the brushes away as they lose the ability to cut into the wood really well. I really had not expected this to be happening, but that's what seems be happening. Very strange and also difficult to explain! I was thinking that painting the surface with something would be a recipe for success, but no such luck and anything with a synthetic binder into the paint, or primer is pretty much useless. I am quite surprised how long it takes to brush obeche to obtain and adequate graining effect, I though that the obeche would work really well, being such a soft wood. Clearly something is happening here, that I don't fully understand!
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
User avatar
prospero
Posts: 11492
Joined: Tue 05 Jun, 2007 4:16 pm
Location: Lincolnshire

Re: Any ideas for a base coat primer, which I can easilly wire brush a fine grain into as part of a new finishing iidea.

Post by prospero »

Doing it by hand with a wire brush produces a very subtle grainy effect.
To get a really rough-looking surface you really need to use a rotary brush in a power drill and lean on it hard.
If you want a extreme rough surface then a milling tool in a Dremel, applied at 45º is to way to go. The last
technique works best on pine where you can follow the rays.
Watch Out. There's A Humphrey About
Not your average framer
Posts: 11014
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Any ideas for a base coat primer, which I can easilly wire brush a fine grain into as part of a new finishing iidea.

Post by Not your average framer »

Yes, I can manage the course grain effect on pine very well, that's what works best for me with pine, but for the close grained effect I find that pine does not work very well at all. In some ways, perhaps obeche is not perfect, but for me it has a lot to do with easy availability and price. I have not tried doing it with obeche for really large frames, because although obeche is quite soft, it still takes quite a lot of time to get a nice even effect. If I did not like the effect so much, it probably would not bother at all, but grained wood mouldings seem to be quite popular in rural areas, such as where I am located. I've hardly ever soldl all that many factory finished mouldings for quite a lot of years. I don't know whether that is just because that's just the local demand mostly, of whether it's also largely what I like to do as well, but it certainly seems to be what works for me.

I hardly ever bother with mouldings that look really modern and up to date. They are really hard work to sell them around bovey tracey, unless they are stupidly cheap and then there is no worthwhile money in producing such frames. However, it's really quite simple to put a nice grain onto a cheap moulding and often a fairly basic finish and although it was not originally an expensive moulding, it becomes reasonable popular and customers are quite happy to pay a decent price for it. I am yet to try a bit of burning obeche, before I brush it, but it works well for me on cheap, plain, pine moulding and sooner, or later I will have try this with the obeche and see what happens. I guess that I got a lot more serious about using the same mouldings in different ways, when this Covid virus came along and all the talk about the coming recession started and all this has got me trying lots of new things.

I've probably never had such a productive time for producing some many new ideas, which actually work really well in all the time that I have been making hand finished frames. I am thinking that I have to keep things quick. simple and easy since my stroke probably has had a lot to do with this. I also make up plenty of stains and washes using watered don paints and this has led me quite a lot into new possibilities as well. I am having good success brushing of thick coats of paste wax and baking them with a hot air gun to get smooth and hard finishes as well. The last of the side passageways doors is supposed to finished quite soon, so O should getting some fittings built in the shop quite soon now, so things will be coming together in the coming weeks.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Post Reply