How to use glaze in furniture finishing

How to apply glaze. 

Glaze is a wiping stain, his application always requires wiping. Glaze is special stain that is applied between the clear coatings. The glaze application directly to the wood will tend to soak  in and absorbed by the wood and make blotchy and dirty color. The glaze is need to be applied on a smooth surface.
Glaze application can be done by sprayed, poured, and wiped then brushed to get the even color. Glaze is designed to form color and fill the pores and grains and enhanced the beauty of wood grains and pores. This glaze is made from the pigment colors with a kind of binder and oil solvent which is not dissolve a sealer or top coat. Thus, this glaze can be applied over a sealer or top coat with very high flexibility. However glaze need to be applied in the right way to get the best result. There 2 function of glaze in the finishing: to form color and to make antique looked.

1. Glaze to form color

To form the color, glaze is usually applied over a thin sealer (wash coat). Wash coat is a thin sealer that is layered to protect the stain before glaze application. Wash coat is giving enough protection to the stain so it wont, wiped off in the glaze application. The thin layer of the wash coat also let the glaze to penetrate and  fill the pores and grains of wood. The solid content of he wash coat can be adjusted to keep open to let the glaze fill the pores and grain  but it wont bite too much to make blotchy color or too dark color. 
Wash coat also protecting the stain underneath so it is not resolve during glaze application. We can apply glaze by pouring, spraying or brushing on the wash coated  surface, then wiped and brushed to let the glaze evenly covered the surface. 
To enhance the grain and get the live looked, the glaze can be highlighted.

Glaze is poured into the surface, wipe and brushed evenly, and highlighted

Highlight glaze is the wiped off glaze, and make some light color on certain parts. With the right highlight the finishing will looked more live, rich, enhanced the beauty of the grain. Highlight can be done using a rag or steel wool after glaze is applied evenly over the surface. The highlight on this glaze must consider and follow the pattern of wood grains. A highlight on a flat surface is to enhance the grain so it needs to follow the grain pattern in the wood. In the carvings or in crevices of the highlight is done by removing the glaze on the outside part, and leave the glaze inside. This will make the outer surface look a little lighter while the inside while carving or cracks will appear slightly darker. This will make carvings and crevices are becoming more visible prominent, lively and interesting.

Glaze application to fill and coloring inside the carving

The glaze application always need to be layered with clear coating on it. The clear coating on the glaze will protect the glaze layer. Without clear coating protection the glaze layer will easy to be wipe off and removed for its underneath surface.. But the clear coating application on the glaze must be done when he glaze is thoroughly dry. The glaze which is not dry can cause many finishing problems such as: crack, muddy looked, bubble, pinhole, and adhesion problem.

The glaze usually has slow dry solvent to make it can be wiped easily.  But then it will need long time to dry. The drying time of the glaze depend on the type of glaze and also the thickness of the glaze layer. the drying time may vary from 1 hour to a day. Make sure the glaze has already dry before it is layered with clear coating. The glaze is oil based material. The oil in the glaze has to be evaporated since it could bring to many problem to the finishing.