Warehouse for finishing materials.

The warehouse for finishing material is place where the finishing materials are placed and kept. The warehouse is needed  by all industries associated with the finishing process. A small finishing workshop might put its finishing materials finishing in the finishing room, but of course it still needs proper arrangement. A finishing material distributor or a big furniture factory will need a bigger room to place and store its finishing materials. This condition of course will require the better system to  arrange the room and the management.

The main principle in the storage finishing materials is that the finishing materials generally  are considered as  hazardous chemicals. Most of finishing materials are flammable and toxic, therefore must be handled carefully. Fire is one of the greatest risks are generated from the finishing material. The big percentage of finishing materials are volatile solvent. The solvent vapor is the same dangerous material with the liquid solvent. Any small spark fire in this room  can generated to big fire.  This solvent vapor when inhaled by the breathing is potential to interfere to the human health. Some finishing materials can also cause health problems if the skin and the human body. 

 the finishing material warehouse should have good air circulation

Here are the things that must be considered in the finishing materials storage

•  Place the finishing material in special room that is separate from the other building.

A finishing material warehouse is a place material with a high fire risk, since that it should be placed in a room or building that is separate with the other buildings.  Thus, if the accident occurs then the event can be localized in the room and the bigger loss can be avoided. The finishing warehouse  building should be in the place that is easy to be accessed. If there any accident is occurred it can be anticipated easily and quickly.

• Good air circulation in the room.

The finishing materials in open cans will evaporate and emit the gas of solvent vapor. The gas emissions in the room will make the room become unhealthy place. The room if it is saturated with solvent vapor also becomes high risk of fire hazard. Therefore,  the finishing material room should have a good air circulation. The good  air circulation will avoid the solvent fume saturated air to make the room is healthier and minimized the risk of fire hazard.

•  The arrangement of material

The materials are stored are always expected to used. The the proper arrangement is necessary to make sure all material can be observed and seen easily. It will minimized the material wastes since the missing material.  Make a good arrangement material according to the type of material and well organize them so all material needed can be found easily.
The finishing materials usually have a certain lifetime, a material which has passed its expiration date will be damaged and cannot be used. Therefore, the finishing materials must be organized in a system that ensure that the first material enter  is the first material out. It will prevent the unused materials due to the  expire. A good calculations to the material needs of daily, weekly or monthly is very important data to guess the amount of material needed.

• The fire extinguishers.

The fire danger is one of the highest risk in the finishing materials warehouse. Since that the fire extinguisher is a standard facility in this room.  Make sure the room is equipped with adequate fire extinguishers  to anticipate the accident in this room.

• The proper lighting.

The warehouse finishing materials  also requires adequate lighting. The lighting is necessary to do the proper handling and checking the material.  The enough lighting in the room  is also help in viewing the situation that occurred in the room clearly. Thus if there is anything suspicious , it would be immediately discovered and anticipated before the bigger danger is happened. 

Lighting in the finishing room.

Light is essential in the finishing process. The purpose of a finishing process is to establish a certain color and appearance on product. Color always highly depend on the light that lighting to the object. The finishing process is also detail works which always require sufficient light. The proper lighting will help the operators to do the finishing work more properly and avoid the miss execution since the lack of light. Instead of enough lighting, the finishing room also need the proper light.  Therefore, the lighting in the finishing room should be properly designed. The good arrangement of lamps with the correct lamp will be a good support to the finishing process. 

 The finishing room should be light enough in daylight

Here are some things that must be considered in lighting in the finishing room.

• The types of lamps for finishing room.

The visible color from an object is obtained from the color reflected by the object when the object is subjected to light. Based on this theory, it is easy to understand if we see an object with different color when it is illuminated with different lights. This phenomenon sometimes can create problem in the finishing process. At the moment we see and review the color sometimes we get different results when we do outside the room, in the room and or when we do it using different types of lamps. We sometime can also see different colors when viewed the object in the morning and in the afternoon.

To view the colors properly we should use the natural light, it is the light that obtained during daylight. The day light is contained  all wavelengths that build the color. Since that we should design the finishing room so that it can be light enough during the day time. The lights are installed should only be used when only the day is dark such as at night or during rainy or cloudy. This will also save the electricity consumption for lighting.

 the lamps used in the finishing room should produces natural light. We can get this lamp type in the electric shop. Since the different looked from the bulb light and the  florescence lamp, some finishing workshops complement the room with the two types of lamp. The florescence lights used should be that of the type of natural light, while the spotlight is used also the natural spotlights. 

The lamps installation in the spray booth

• The lights installation

The main reason of lamps installation in the finishing room is to provide enough light  to make  the work piece can be more clearly visible when the finishing process is done. Therefore, the lamp must be placed correctly to give maximum advantage. The lamp should be organized and installed to provide the enough light to the work piece. Lights should be placed above the workpiece and from behind the operator with the direction toward the object that is being done. The light intensity should be enough to lighting the object and not to much, too much light especially if it is not properly installed will even disturbing the finishing work.

• The maintenance to the lights

Finishing room is always associated with dust, there are a lot of dust are generated in the finishing room from the dust spray and the sanding process. The dust will fall, floating and stick to all the objects that exist in the finishing room, including the lamps. The lamps that have been covered with dust will be blurred and can not provide maximum light, or even change the color resulted.. Therefore, the lights in the room finishing must maintained and cleaned periodically to keep to keep produce light clearly.

• The safety in the electrical installation.

Lights are always in need of electrical power, while the electricity is risk to produce sparks that should be minimized in the finishing room. The electrical spark when reach the finishing material can cause big fire in the finishing room. Therefore, the installation of lights should be done carefully, all electrical circuits and electrical panels must be close pack to reduce the risk of fire. Do a scheduled maintenance to the electric circuits and lamp. Dust that is collected in the electrical circuit should be cleaned periodically.

 

Laminated wood for furniture.

Wood is still the main raw material for furniture until today.  There could be many other materials are also used to make furniture, but they can never replace the wood. Although there may big issues about the wood preservation and the environment  will not stop the woodworking industry instead of reorganize it. The woodworking industry today should be in balance with the wood preservation. This situation however make the wood become more expensive. The woodworking industries such as the furniture factory should be more efficient in using the wood. Most of furniture factories choose to use the wood product such as: plywood, M.D.F., particle board and veneer to replace the solid wood. But some furniture factories still keep using solid wood. They use the laminated wood to solve the problem about the long and wide surface panels. 

The development of the wood adhesives technology now has allowed the furniture factory to have the high ability to dealing with the solid wood panel in big size.
The laminated wood has several advantages compared with the plywood or veneered panel. The laminated wood is stronger and more durable and its product value will keep increasing by the time. The solid wood furniture can be kept and can sell as an antique in the future. The solid wood is also strong enough to be used as outdoor furniture, at which the veneer can not.

 Even so, of course, the laminated wood must be well trimmed to obtain the maximum result. 

Here are the things that must be considered in the processing of laminated wood.

• 1.   Follow the right procedure of gluing

The laminated process mainly are: the wood surface preparation, the glue application and the glue solidification. To meet the optimum result, each process must be done properly. How each processes done are depend on the type of wood being laminated and the glue used. Make sure that we understand the glue type and follow the technical data of the chemical such: as the drying time, the pressure, the working temperature,etc.

While to do the proper surface preparation we need to understanding of the wood properties. The woods may have different physically properties according to their type. They need to be treated differently according to their properties.

• 2. Use the right glue

The adhesive industry currently provides many adhesives products with various types. Each of them are designed to meet the special needs of the woodworking industry. We need to find the most proper glue according to the product requirement. For example, the white glue is most properly used for the indoor finished furniture.While for outdoor furniture we should use a stronger glue, such as the epoxy or P.U. which can withstand the outside weather. The glue type also may different according to the wood type. Some glue are work better for some type of wood, while the other are work well with other wood. Discuss with the glue supplier to find the most suit glue type according with the product.

• 3. The moisture content of the wood.

The typical of wood character is that its moisture content that will always adjust to its environment humidity. Meanwhile, every change of wood moisture content will lead the wood movement. This phenomenon need to be anticipated to avoid the wood construction problem such as:crack, split, uneven, curved, etc.

To minimize the wood movement problem we need to unifie the wood pieces with similar M.C., when laminating the wood. We need to check the M.C. of each pieces make sure that all the pieces are already follow the standard before glue and laminate them. 

The wood movement is varied and depends on the type and physical properties of wood. But generally the the standard for furniture factory for the M.C. is less then 12%, while the difference between the wood pieces should not exceed 1%.

• 4. Do the matching color and grain of the wood pieces.

Wood is a natural product that has varied properties. The basic color, grain and pores patterns and porosity are subject of variation. The variation if come too far will sginificantly affect the appearance of the final product. The finishing process may help to result a more uniform product. But if the difference is too contrast, the finishing process may not be able to overcome the differences. In the dark color we can apply the heavy stain to cover and camouflage the wood color variation. But for product with natural or light color, the wood variation will visibly seem. Since this reason, it is better if we try to do the wood matching process in the lamination process. It may a rather difficult work, since it will very difficult to recognize the wood appearance of raw wood. But we have to do it as far as possible, since it will be a big help to next the furniture-making processes.

Chippendale furniture style.

Chippendale furniture was recorded as the high class furniture in the middle of the 18th century and its popular is still continue until today. The Chippendale model is still lot found on the market today mostly as the reproduction product.  There are many furniture model designed with Chippendale as reference. The Chippendale is special style created  by Thomas Chippendale, a famous furniture maker in the history of furniture. He was well known as the the British high end furniture maker in the 1750-1780.

 Chippendale seat

Chippendale chair 

Most of Chippendale furniture are made from mahogany wood. This wood was brought into England from Indonesia (Hindia) and is become the best medium for the Chippendale style furniture. The mahogany has medium hardness with soft texture pores and grains. This wood is also has a nice strong grain characters which is very suit to fill up the Chippendale models that is  graceful and elegant. Mostly of Chippendale furniture were lacquered.

The Chippendale style was also well famous in the US furniture. During his life, Thomas Chippendale also wrote a book  "The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director”. This book could be the first book that was written by furniture maker, it could be the other reason that make him become legend.  He featured furniture in many styles, one in them was his designed, the Chippendale furniture.

Chippendale round table

 

Chippendale dinning set

The Chippendale design is basically based on the Queen Anne style and the other existing  style at that era, but with the Chippendale touch. The Chippendale furniture also influenced with at least three style, Gothic, Chinese and French. The typical of Chippendale furniture are: never use the inlay or ornamental painting, carving only means the decoration and  are made from solid wood, most of them are mahogany wood. The Leg of the Chippendale furniture follow and modifies  the Queen Anne-style. He developed the cabriole leg with three different types of feet. They are the cabriole with ball and Claw, the lion's paw, and the club. There three other types of feet are straight, the spade has a tapered round leg with a trapezoidal foot, the Marlborough has a plain and square leg, and the late Chippendale leg has a square with a square foot. Chippendale's Gothic and Chinese influenced can be seen from some of Chippendale furniture which has straight tapering legs. The Chinese Chippendale style furniture can be seemed for bedrooms. The Chippendale chair and dinning set show the highest touch of art and we still can find many furniture with this style now in the market. The Chippendale Society at Temple Newsam House, England has an original collection of furniture and documents.

Chippendale bed

Chippendale bed room set

High gloss silver leaf finish.

  mirror frame with silver leaf finish

The "high gloss silver leaf finish" is very special. It brings the: nice, luxury and elegant appearance which is very attractive. The high gloss finish will make the "high end" and expensive looked product.  To make the high gloss silver finish, the tough work and long time process is needed. The high precision process is required from the unfinished preparation to the last process of finishing to be success in the high gloss finishing. The presence imperfectness and untidiness will very clearly visible and ruin the finishing appearance.Now we want to share how to make the high gloss silver finish.

The process to make the high gloss silver finish.

• Preparation of unfinished product

The  unfinished wood preparation is the important key to produce the high gloss finish. We need the perfect unfinished product to make the good looked high gloss finished product. The imperfection in the unfinished product will clearly visible in the high gloss finish.  Do the good working since the component and assembling process, make sure we make the precise component and fit well in the assembling time. Check the precision of the component, the size, shape, etc and make sure it right. Make sure the flat surface parts are already flat and even before assembled. Fill up every dent, hole, gap or dent if there any. Check the moisture content of the wood and make sure it fulfill the standard moisture content for furniture product.

 gesso for gilt finish

• Application of gesso

Gesso is a mixture of white pigment, glue and chalks that is mostly used as the underneath surface before paint finish. Gesso is a good option material for coating wood surfaces prior to the application of silver leaf to make high gloss finish. Gesso can cover the wood grain, pores and even small dents or gaps to produce a flat and smooth surface. Gesso can be purchased from the paint shop or can be made.

We can make  gesso by this way:

1. mix: 5 parts of hide glue, 1 part of calcite (calcium carbonate), 1 part of talc and 5 parts of water.

2. Boiled and agitate the mixture until the hide glue is melted and result a thick liquid (paste)  mix. The liquid mix will hard and dry when it is cold, then it should be applied when it still warm.  

Apply the "gesso" mixture when it is still warm to the entire surface of the wood with a brush. The gesso from the paint shop is usually in a thick liquid  form and can be applied on directly to the surface. Wait until the material is dry and harden. It takes quite long (about 1 day) to let this layer dry.

Then after this layer dry, we need to sand the gesso to make smooth and even surface. Use  the fine sandpaper to produce the flat, smooth and even surface layer.  

• Applications of silver leaf.

Silver leaf can be directly applied to the gesso surface after it is smooth and flat. Apply the glue evenly to the surface by brush or spray and wait for awhile to let the glue dry. Then paste the silver leaf to entire surface with a brush. see our previous article: silver leaf finish
There are some type of silver leaf which can be used to make a silver leaf finish. But for a high gloss finish we should use glue and silver leaf with the best quality. The thick leaf and high carat is the best suit for the high gloss finish. The thick silver is easy to be applied, the thin leaf is very easy to break and difficult to be applied to make even finish leaf. The high carat silver will display the appearance of luxury and expensive looked. While the low carat silver leaf will look cheap and are not suitable for high gloss finish, it is more applicable for the antique silver finish.

• Sealer application.

The application of sealer on the surface of silver leaf is needed to prepare the surface before the top coat application. Apply the sealer evenly on the leaf with a spray gun with medium wet spray technique. Avoid "too wet" sealer spray because of the risk sagging; the silver leaf layer act as metal surface that cannot absorb to much finishing materials.

Wait the sealer to dry and then do a light sanding.

 high gloss silver leaf finish

• Application of top coat

The last process is the top coat application. We need  a high gloss top coat to make high gloss finish. The application of top coat should be done carefully. Apply the top coat evenly onto the surface by wet spray technique. The high gloss finish is sensitive to the dust, so we need a clean finishing and drying room. The existence of dirt or dust on the surface will be seem clearly and ruin the appearance of finishing.