Finishing color for mahogany furniture

  

mahogany furniture with red brown transparent finish

antique mahogany finish

Mahogany wood is one of the raw materials of furniture that is very popular and widely used. In some areas, especially the tropical country, mahogany wood is very easy to grow and develop. Since that the mahogany wood is relatively easy to get with relatively cheap price. It makes many furniture manufacturers choose mahogany wood as the raw material for making furniture.

Mahogany wood is very wide use in furniture making. Almost all models and styles of indoor furniture products can be made with mahogany wood. Almost all furniture finishing model such as: antique, contemporary, classic, dirty looked, old looked, clean looked, solid color, transparent color is applied to wood mahogany. Yet if we remember that the finishing process should explore and enhance the beauty of the wood, then we should choose the finishing type that can show and enhance beauty of the mahogany wood grain and base color.

One of the beauty of mahogany wood is its grain which is soft looked but with strong character. For that reason we encourage to finish mahogany wood in a transparent color. The transparent  finish allows to show and enhance the beauty and uniqueness of the grain pattern of the mahogany wood. Finishing with transparent colors that are "clean" and close pores in the wood can produce a luxurious and elegance mahogany furniture. But with the antic, "dirty" and old looked finishing, the mahogany furniture product is also very attractive and interesting.

According to his red brown base color, mahogany wood should be finished in dark brown or red brown color. The dark color will certainly easier the finishing peoples to do the finishing process because the base color is already there. The stain needed is small amount to even and blend the overall color looked. That is why the most popular finishing color for mahogany wood is brown color, from red brown to the dark brown color. For other color that contrast from the base color such as green color, for example, there will need a greater effort to catch the final color.

 mahogany furniture in two color

It should be avoided to finish mahogany wood in light color, since it will difficult to hide his red brown basic color. We can kill the red color with apply an appropriate stain, but it will go to darker color. If it is forced to finish mahogany wood in light color, and then there are two things we need to do: select the wood or bleach the wood. The selection of wood means we must choose the white mahogany wood to be used in making furniture. This is of course very difficult, because it will make lots of mahogany wood can not be used, which ultimately makes the price of the product to be expensive. The second choice is to bleaching the wood. This bleaching process is often done in furniture manufacturer industries. However bleaching process should be avoided as much as possible, because it is relatively difficult process, dangerous and takes time. Bleaching process also make the wood became fragile, especially on the outermost layer. 

 mahogany white wash finish

antique red mahogany

There are also many furniture products with mahogany wood are finished in solid color. Mahogany with a solid color is mostly an antique looked solid color. With the antique white is the most popular.

Omnirax Force 24 Studio Desk, Mahogany

Finishing process for mahogany wood furniture

Mahogany wood

Mahogany is very popular wood and mostly used for furniture substrate. This wood is available in many areas so it can be sourced quite easy. The properties of wood may vary according to the region of the mahogany originated. But mahogany wood generally has the following properties: the hardness is medium, the base color is red, and the pores are small but deep with strong grain character. Mahogany wood is very popular to make indoor furniture. For outdoor furniture mahogany wood is rarely used because he is considered not strong enough. A mahogany wood has gently but very strong grain character. With the proper finishing, it can be used to make furniture product with very attractive appearance. Mahogany is also widely available in the veneer. By using veneer, then more variation can be made to create the special looked. The different character of mahogany wood is also determined by the age of mahogany tree. The old mahogany wood has very nice and strong character of grain, but it has a red dark base color and deep pores.

Color variation of the wood. 



Mahogany wood can have color variation, from one place to another. The variation sometime is quite far, especially when we use veneer and solid wood in a furniture product. To overcome this problem and to get the same color in the final finishing color, we need to adjust the wood color in the stain application. We can use sap stain and equalizer stain to make more uniform color. Sap stain for mahogany wood is very common. It is used to bring the mahogany wood with white color go to brown color follow the darker wood. Meanwhile the equalizer stain is used to tone down the red-brown color that appear in some part in the wood. To even the color you can view in our article: how to match color in the wood furniture finishing. 
The old wood mahogany has a very strong grain pattern and red dark base color. With the proper finish it will give attractive looked. The red color of mahogany wood actually very nice but it will make finish color is limited to the dark brown or red. We cannot make light color with this wood. Mahogany sap wood has light color so it can be used to make lighter finish but usually the grain pattern is vague not as strong as the mahogany for old age mahogany timber.

Color variation of mahogany wood on furniture product

Bubble or pinhole.

Similar case with the grains and pores, the old wood mahogany has a very strong grain character, but also has deep and small pores. The strong grain character make the old mahogany wood will create attractive and life looked with the proper finishing process. But this unique pores and grain character is easy to create bubble or pinhole in finishing, especially when the film is quite thick. A wood filler is highly recommended to make a closed pores finish to the mahogany wood. Unfortunately his pore characters make it rather difficult to be filled. We need to use the good quality filler to fill in the mahogany wood. The filler which is dry longer is works better for filling the mahogany. It is also better to use thin filler instead of thick filler to make sure the filler is come into the small pores. Some time we need to fill 2 times to ensure that the filling is done correctly.

Wood grains and pores variation

Like other wood, the character of mahogany wood is depending on how the wood was growing and life. Sometimes there is a big variation of grains and pores in the mahogany wood. It quite common when we find a mahogany wood that at one place it has very strong grains and pores, while in other parts has smooth vague grain. This is actually the uniqueness of the wood, but if the different is too far from a part to another, the product will look strange. This problem is more often when the furniture is made with combination of solid wood and veneer. The veneer usually  more busy in pores and grain compare with the solid wood. We can use filler to minimize this problem. 
Use a light color filler to fill the pores to avoid the big pores to absorb too much stain that will resulting in dark color. Since there are many variation of grain pattern, we also need to make sure that the veneer grain is match when they area attached. The grain pattern when matching the veneer will affect the finishing look. The nice match of veneer pattern will give a nice looking furniture finishing, while the veneer setting that is not good matched will result an ugly looked.

The risk of termite

Mahogany wood is considered as a "sweet wood". Bug or turn mite likes to eat mahogany wood. There are many cases that the furniture made of mahogany wood was damage because of termite. No matter how good your furniture construction, model or looked, it will became useless if the wood is broken. To prevent this problem, the mahogany wood need to be well prepared in process production of making furniture. Usually the mahogany wood is soaked in a insecticide solution before dried and processed in a furniture factories.


Complete woodworking course.

Finishing room for wood furniture finishing

A special room is needed to do the finishing process. The place to do the finishing process could be the open space, a simple room like a yard, shed, unused garage, etc. but it mus be purposed to do the finishing process. The basin needed for the finishing process is the space to do the work. But to get the good finishing result, the finishing process should be done in a finishing room. It is a place or room which is design and equipped with facilities to do the finishing process. There are some standard facilities, equipment and setting are needed for the finishing room to do the finishing process safe and produces good results
The finishing room design and size is depending on the volume of the finishing job that need to be done. For a small scale of finishing job, a small room with an exhaust fan may be enough. But for a big volume job then the big room with the complete facilities is needed. There are many things need to be considered when we make a detail design of a finishing room is base on the finishing process that will be done and the volume of job. 

The consideration in the finishing room design.

• Standard building for the finishing room

To produce a finish with good results, the finishing process requires a place that is free from rain, sunlight, wind, dirt or other disturbing factors. Consider to the safety, the building must meet the standard of rooms building. But for support for the finishing process there some requarimen is needed; the close roof, the floor has to be strong and easy to be cleaned, the walls must be tight, strong enough and secure. This finishing room will be noisy, generate dust and other pollutant when operated, thus finishing this room should be in placed outside from the people resident settlement.

The room should also has at least two door, one for entrance and the other is for exit so if there is dangerous situation, the people can evacuate easily.

• Lighting in the finishing room

Finishing process is the work which is always deal and relate to the color and appearance. Finishing process requires detailed work, since that the proper lighting in the finishing room is very important. The lighting of finishing room should be enough to let the peoples inside can see the product clearly, but should not be too shiny. Too much light may disturb the vision. The room should be designed to be quite clear in the daytime, but avoid the direct sunlight into the room. The direct sunlight is too shiny and disturbing the vision. The lights should be used only when the day got dark, like at night time or in rainy day. The daylight is the best light to see the color. The uses of day light will also save the electricity.

From the color theory we know that the visible color of an object is depending to the light that go to the object. Since that the use of natural light in finishing room is a very important thing to keep the real color of the finishing we make. An inappropriate light for color vision can disrupt the finishing color resulted. The lamps for finishing room should use the natural light lamp, the lamp that provide light as day.

• Good air circulation in the finishing room

In the room there is a lot of finishing materials, including paint thinner and solvent. When the thinner and solvent is used or stored at the open place he will evaporate. Therefore, the finishing room is easy to be fumed with solvent vapor. Room which is fulled with thinner and solvent vapor is not healthy for the peoples in there and also become dangerous place. The solvent vapor is easy to trigger fire. If there any small spark, then a big fire can be easy generated. Therefore, the finishing room should open enough so that air circulation can occur easily. To keep the air circulation,  the finishing room could also equipped with exhaust fan to release the solvent vapor and replace it with fresh air.

• Spray booth in the finishing room

Modern finishing process currently mostly use the spray process that will always generate a lot of dust spray. To attract dust and keep this spray in the room is clean, a spray booth is required. Spray booth is a finishing equipment that suck the air and dust spray from the spray process out and keep the room to keep clean. About spray booth you can view in our previous article: spray booth for wood finishing.

• Safety equipment in the finishing room

Finishing room should be considered as a dangerous place. In the finishing room there is a lot of finishing material that most are highly flammable chemical. In the finishing room there are also many furniture products mostly made from dry wood which is also highly flammable. Even a small mistake could lead to emergence of a spark that will very easy to get fire and even a huge explosion. The fire fighting equipment is the important facility that must be available in the finishing room.

Exhaust fan for wood furniture finishing

To do the finishing job with relatively small volume and in the area where the air pollution is not big issues, then we can build a simple facility to the do the finishing process. The finishing job may can be  done in open area or big room as long as the air can flow freely. If the finishing job is quite big volume and we have to ensure the room to be free from the dust spray but we don,t want to build spray booth, then we can mount an exhaust fan in the wall of the finishing room. Exhaust fan do the exhausting of the dust spray by sucking out dust spray and keep the air inside the room stay clean. There is no filter or water fall as the spray booth. It work well to clean the finishing room, but since dust spray is not filtered, then the air with the finishing material dust will spread into the outside room. It may against to the environment and people around. Since that, it must be ensured that the finishing room is located in a safe place The finishing room should be far away from the residential population. If the finishing room is close to the people live, the exhaust fan should be equipped with filters.

exhaust fan for finishing room

Compared with the spray booth, the cost of the exhaust fan is less expensive in investment and operational cost. This system could be a good choice to start a furniture finishing business if environmental conditions allow. As well as the spray booth, exhaust fan should be cleaned every period of time. 
There is no filtering of finishing material before withdrawn by exhaust fan. This makes exhaust fan will be easily filled and dirty with finishing materials dust. But luckily this is an open facility. What we need to do is regularly checking and cleaning to the fan. If there is any problem with the exhaust fan then we have to fix it to avoid the big explosion since the fire risk of the finishing material. This open condition also makes people be simpler to do the cleaning and maintenance to the fan.

Wet spray booth for furniture finishing

Wet spray booth is a spray booth that uses water to filter the dust spray. Water is flowed in front of the exhaust fan and designed to form a curtain waterfall. The air and dust spray material from the spray is suck and flowed through the water curtain. The flowing water will do as a filter to capture and dissolve the dust spray and past the clean air to the environment. In the factory that do the finishing for large volume work, the spray booth filter replacement can be an expensive cost, because we need to replace it quite often. The wet booth is the good option to the finishing shop or furniture factory to facilitate the big volume finishing job.

wet spray booth

To make the waterfall we need to built a flowing plate from stainless steel. The wet spray booth need more expensive initial investment cost than dry spray booth, but will give less  operational costs than the dry spray booth. Wet spray booth does not require frequent replacement of filters as in the dry spray booth. What he needs is enough water to be flowed as an air filter. The water should be replaced after it is becoming dirty and full with finishing materials. With the consideration that the water is cheaper material than the filter, then the operating costs of wet booth will be less expensive than dry booth. In the furniture manufacturer the wet booth is good choice for the stage when the high solid and more material is sprayed; such as: the glaze booth or the paint (base coat) booth.

The wet spray booth releases dirty water when he runs. While the regulation could be restrict people to release the dirty water. So in this condition we need to make a water treatment to clean the dirty water before discharge it. The water treatment can be done by collect and let it settle in a basin. Then flow the water out and let slurry settle and stay at the basin.

 

Spray booth for furniture finishing

The spray booth is facility to clean the finishing room and suck up dust spray. The spray booth is an equipment in finishing room that sucking and pulling out the dust spray material in the finishing room to keep the inside finishing room clean. Most of modern finishing process for furniture is done by spray. The spray method can apply  finishing materials quickly with very good result to accommodate the modern finishing quality requirement. But the spray method will always produce dust spray and thinner fume. The dust spray and thinner is a problem since it could contaminate the environment. The dust spray that is generated by the spray process is quite big since the spray application has low efficiency. When we spray the finishing material, only about 30% - 50% of finishing material will coat the surface. It means that about 50% to 70% of the sprayed material will spread to the air as the dust spray. (See our previous article " the spreading rate of finishing material application". )
The exhaust fan with strong power is the main equipment to suck the air and dust spray and exhaust it from the spray room. But since the air and dust spray is chemical that could pollute the environment then it has to be filtered. The air filter is mounted to in the exhausting of the spray room to trap the dust and solid particles and let the clean air go. According to the type of filter used, there are 2 types of spray booth: the dry spray booth and the wet spray booth.

dry spray booth

Dry spray booth

Dry spray booth is use a dry filter to filter the dust spray. The filter that is commonly used is a sieve made from polyurethane. Some other substrate for the filter are also can be used. The filter is work to hold and capture the dust spray, and let the clean air to exit from the room. 
The filter will be fulfill with finishing materials and so becomes clogged after being used for certain time. When the filter is clogged then it  should be replaced with a new filter so that spray booth can well function again. 
It is very important to make sure that the filter is working well since it also serves to keep the air trough the booth is clean. The dust spray at the exhaust fan blade could lead to the fire danger. The dust spray is highly flammable material. The fan blade which load much finishing material would be very risky to get fire sparked caused by friction between the metal and the finishing material dust. This can lead to big fire disaster to the whole room. Therefore the maintenance of spray booth is very important. The spray booth cleaning and maintenance has to be done periodically to keep the spray booth clean and save. Routine checks for the exhaust fan and replacement of the filter is needed to be done discipline and well scheduled.
The filter replacement frequency is depending on the type of finishing is used and the volume of work. For some furniture finishing with large volume of work, the replacement of filter should be done every day. Replacement filters are also influenced by the type of finishing material is applied at the spray booth. The finishing materials that do not generate much solid material such as stain, the air filter will stay longer. While the finishing material that has more solid materials such as: sealer, top coat and glaze, the filter will more quickly full and clogged. And more often replacement is needed.

For the wet spray booth you can view it in our next article:  wet spray booth

Stains in the furniture finishing

Stain is the finishing material that determines the color of the final finishing.  About the types of stain you can view in my previous article: the stain for wood finishing. Meanwhile, in this post we will discuss about stain according to its application. Here will discuss about the stains according to their function in the process of finishing furniture. According to the usage purpose, stain can be classified into: sap stain, equalizer stain, body stain, glaze and pad stain.

 wood variation in the basic color

Sap stain and equalizer stain 

Now most of furniture manufacturer are getting more difficult to get the good wood as raw materials. The wood more difficult to be sourced and more expensive in price. This situation force the furniture manufacturer to source the cheaper wood and accept the lower grade of wood. There many problem can come since this choice. One of the problems often encountered in the furniture production is the basic color of the wood that varies in every place and every time. Meanwhile the demand to the furniture product quality is getting higher and finishing color need to be uniform to all furniture product. In other side the wood color become more varies. Therefore, to overcome the variation of the basic colors of wood, the finishing process almost always required stain application to make even and uniform color. To help uniform the color we can adjust the wood base color at the beginning of the finishing process using a special stain, the sap stain and equalizer stain. 

Sap stain is a stain that is used to bring the light color of the wood to the dark color. Sap stain mostly is brown color usually used to cover the light-colored wood. While equalizer stains work in the opposite  with the sap stain. The equalizer stain is stain used to cover and camouflage the striking color of wood in certain parts that will disturbing the final finishing color. The color of sap stain and equalizer stain is depending on the basic color of wood and the final color of the finishing desired. The most widely used equalizer stain is equalizer with green color stain to tone down the red colors in the wood. But actually we can make sap stain and equalizer stain in every color.

Body Stain 

The body stain is a stain that is applied evenly to overall surfaces. Body stain is the main stain used to build the color to bring the wood from its color to the desired finish color. The selection of the body stain color and type, mainly depends on the color of the wood and the final finishing color and looked. Now mostly the body stain is applied by spray. Other applications method such as: brushed, dipped, wipe is also can be used, but become rarely because the finishing speed and quality reason. For specific colors, especially dark color, sometimes we need to  apply the stain 2 times or even more, either with the same or different type of stain.

Pad Stain 

Pad stain is a special type of stain which can be applied on sealer or top coat by padding. Pad stain is made from organic pigments (dye) with alcohol solvent. With alcohol as the solvent, the  pad stain can be applied over sealer or top coat without bite too much. The dye pigment, make it won’t cover too much and keep the clarity of the finishing color. If the application of pad stain is considered too much or too thick, it can be removed again by rub with steel wool or sandpaper without too much damage to the existing finishing underneath. The pad stain is also available to make a variety of finishing effects such as: antique effects, dirty effect, burnish (dark color) on the corners, spatter, watermark etc.).

Pad stain is also used to even the color before the last top coat. to make the uniform color before the last top coat. For this purpose, pad stain is mostly applied by spray. Many finishing peoples like to adjust the finishing color in this step, because the color is more clearly viewed.  The finishing color can be viewed and adjusted after the sealer or top coat application. In the stain and glaze application step, the finishing color is difficult to be viewed. But we need to note that the addition colors over top coat or sealer should be minimize as much as possible. The application too much stain on the sealer or top coat will block and cover the grain and reduce the live and beauty of the grain looked.

Glaze.
 

Glaze is a kind of wiping stain, the stain that his application requires process of wiping. More about this glaze can be seen on my other article: glaze for wood finishing. In an antique finish, glaze is normally used to make antic effects to produce the special appearance such as: dirty, dusty or other effect that necessary. However this glaze can also be used to form the color of the finishing process. Use of glaze to form color will make different finishing looked instead of the stain. To produce the desired finish appearance, sometimes we need to apply glaze 2 x. With a good highlight and the proper application the coloring using glaze will produce a soft, alive, interesting and rich looked finishing color. Glaze also can be used to create contrast effect in finishing. The contrast effect is made by contrasting the color of glaze with overall color of finishing, for example: white glaze color over the dark brown finish or black glaze over white color finishing. This method will result an interesting contrast color between the color finishing with color in the inside part such as: groove, inside of carving, grain, and pores.

Glaze application method is by sprayed, poured, or dipped and then wiped with a cloth and brushed to even the layer of the glaze on the surface. By this application, the glaze can easily color and fill in the gaps, groove or inside the carving. Glaze is also designed so it can be added or removed easily without damage the sealer or top coat underneath. So it can be easily added and remove according to the need.

wisno finishing book store

Spray gun with pump

Spray gun with pump is more modern spray equipment than the pressure port. It uses a pump to flow the finishing material to the spray gun. The pump help the flow of the finishing material to the spray gun to be regulated and controlled better. The replacement of finishing material can also be done easier. We do not need to open the tank and wash the tank as in the pressure ports. The cleaning of the pump and the replacement of materials can be done more quickly with flow the washing thinner into the pump and spray gun, then after the pump and spray gun clean enough, the material is replaced with new material. 

The installation of spray gun with pump

For medium-scale production, then the finishing materials are placed in a small place such as a bucket or pail and placed in the finishing room. In this case the finishing material is pumped using the low pressure pump, the commonly used is diaphragm pump. But for finishing job with a very large volume, the finishing materials is put in drums placed in a certain place called the mixing room. In the mixing room the finishing materials are mixed, prepared and stirred in their each container. The finishing material is pumped and flowed by a high pressure pump to the spray gun in the finishing room. Pump that used to flow the finishing materials must be strong enough to flow the material from the mixing room to finishing room which could be quite long distance. The pump used usually is piston type pump which has has greater power. This system make the material transport of the finishing materials can be done quickly and more easily to be controlled. The supervision and control of the finishing materials is done in only 1 room, that is the mixing room. 

Pressure port or pressure tank in the furniture finishing

To do finishing process in large-scale production, the cup gun is not effective. Each time we do spray, the finishing material in the cup will empty and it need to be refilled. This process wastes time and effort. The other problem is, when we do spray to a big stuff, sometimes the volume of finishing material in the cup is not sufficiently enough to spray the entire surface of the goods, so that the spraying must be paused. The paused spraying on the furniture product should be avoided because it will result in an uneven coating, spray line or dust spray. Moreover the cup gun attached in the gun with finishing material in there is quite heavy and limiting the spray gun movement and make difficulty to spray the inside parts, corners or narrow place.

To overcome the problem then developed spraying equipment with a finishing material placed in a big tank, and is flowed to the spray gun when it is used. The simplest equipment for this purpose is the pressure port or pressure tanks. This equipment consists of a sealed tank containing the finishing materials and is usually equipped with a stirrer for stirring the finishing materials. Compressed air is flowed into the tank to put pressure on the tank to flow the finishing material to the spray gun. The finishing material flows from the tank to the spray gun is mainly caused by the air pressure that is flowed into the tank ans the enough air pressure is needed. This equipment is equipped with pressure regulating tap, a barometer to indicate the pressure, a safety valve and usually also equipped with a stirrer for stirring the material in it. This tool is relatively inexpensive, very simple in handling and operating. The treatment that is needed is just cleaning the tank every time the job is finished or when the material needs to be replaced or refilled.

The installation of pressure port

For a process where the change of the finishing materials are pretty often, this equipment is rather impractical because any time the material change it need time to open the tank, pour the material, washing tank, filling the new material and closed the tank.

Cup gun for furniture finishing

Cup gun is spraying equipment which has a cup attached to the spray gun. The cup is the container to place the finishing material. This equipment is very practical, relatively simple, and easy to be carried, used and cleaned. The resulting job is very good quality with high speed. Cup gun is spraying equipment in the smallest sizes. Spray gun is more suitable for small-scale job. But for the large scale finishing industry, this equipment is still widely used, especially for touch-up work, for the correction to some missed work by the bigger spraying equipment.

There are 2 kinds of cup gun, the gravity cup gun and suction cup or siphon feed cup gun

Gravity cup gun

In the gravity cup gun the finishing material is placed in the cup which is in higher position with the spray gun. In the gravity cup gun the finishing liquid flow into the atomization room (nozzle) due to gravity force and then atomized by the air pressure flow at nozzle.

Suction cup gun or siphon feed cup gun

In the suction cup gun the finishing material is placed in the cup attached below the gun. The finishing material is suck into the nozzle because of the suction force of the very fast air flow in the atomization room (nozzle) and then atomized by compressed air. The air flows through the nozzle spray gun in which the room is enlarge so that the air flow becomes very fast. The fast air flow makes the pressure in the nozzle room became very low. The difference in pressure between the nozzle and the cup will pull and suck the finishing material into the nozzle to then mix with air pressure and then the atomization is happened.

Binks M1-G HVLP Gravity Feed Gun with Cup / BIN-6924-0000-0

Finishing cost calculation for furniture finishing

The calculation of finishing cost is very important in the furniture finishing industry. By doing the right calculation, we can estimate the finishing cost to make a certain finishing looked and color at a certain furniture product. If we the finishing shop then we can determine the finishing cost we gonna charge for that finishing. In the furniture factory the finishing cost is also very important to make price for the product. 
The calculation of the cost of finishing is a quite difficult because there many factors that affects the cost of finishing. The material, the time and the people skill are the factors that is not easy to be measured. But however as finishing people we have to calculate or estimate the finishing cost as much as we can. The biggest factor to determine the finishing costs is the finish quality desired. The quality of finishing will determine the finishing process and the finishing materials that used for that finishing requirement. The other factors those affecting the finishing cost are: the application method, efficiency of equipment used, skill of the operator, form and shape of the furniture product, material type, and speed of production.  

While the elements cost of finishing process are: the finishing materials, labor and finishing utility such as sandpaper, rag, brush, compressed air, finishing room, etc. From many factors of the finishing costs, the finishing material is the biggest costs. Since that the calculation of the finishing materials usage in a finishing process is very important to be known to make an accurate calculation of the overall finishing costs. One of the easiest ways to calculate the needs of finishing materials is to measure and record it at the time of the finishing process. This record later can be used to estimate the need of finishing materials on similar products and similar finishing looked and color. The more we experienced and the more record we made will make our estimation in the calculation of the finishing material become more accurate. 

To help in estimating the material finishing calculation there is a table spreading rate of the finishing materials for various types of finishing materials and application method. This table will help to calculate the finishing materials need when the product surface area is known. Please note that the data in the table may not be very accurate. There are some factors that could affect the accuracy of the calculation such as: the operator skill, the speed of production, the product form, the quality of unfinished product, etc

The spreading rate of finishing materials

(The graph is taken from "Akzo Nobel Useful facts and figure")