Satin finish in the wood furniture finishing

Satin is the term to name a type of fabric. Satin cloth was originally made of silk, then it was expensive. The satin term then was also used to mention the looked at the wood finishing. Satin finish was referring to the finishing with soft and less gloss finish appearance. In the earlier times when most of the finishing was made with high gloss and “bright” appearance, the satin finish was bringing special taste with its low gloss, softness, and natural looked. 
In the past when the top coat with the low gloss had not available, then the satin finish is quite difficult to be achieved. The shellac or varnish will always gave high gloss film finish. To get the satin finish, we need to rub the coating to lower down the gloss. The rubbing was also required to flatten the coating surface and remove the brush mark from the coating application.

Now, when top coat with any gloss is available, then we can make the satin finish with easier and faster process. We can use the low gloss or semi gloss top coat to make the satin finish without any rubbing process. By spray applications we can make a finish with medium gloss and smooth surface as the satin finish. 

table with satin finish

With the modern material and equipment, we can have some options to make the satin finish. Here are some ways to make satin finish.

• The medium gloss top coat.

Satin gloss finish refers to the sheen about 30 to 60. At this time there are wide range of top coat sheen are available. With the modern spray gun and the right material, we can make any sheen as we need. And even more, with the proper material, equipment and application technique, we can get the smooth and even film surface with 1 shoot. If necessary we still can polish the finishing film with oil or wax to get the smooth and soft feel.

• The rubbing process.

We still can rub the top coat to get satin looked and feel. In the past, the finisher always was rubbing the finish process to get the high end finishing looked. The traditional finishing process with shellac or varnish that is done by brush or cloth will leave the brush mark or cloth mark. The rubbing process is important process to clean and fix the brush mark to get the smooth and even finish. Now, with the modern finishing material and equipment we can make the even and smooth films with the spray application. But we still can do rubbing to produce a flat, even and smooth finish with special looked
The rubbing process stills the best way to make the satin looked finish, even in the modern finishing era. Now, the rubbing process now can ​​even done better with the rubbing equipment and rubbing material. We can use the rubbing machine, rubbing compound, steel wool and scotch brite to get  special looked of satin finish. You see more detail in our previous article here : Rubbing and polishing to satin finish

• Waxing lacquer.

Waxing lacquer is a special nc top coat. It is specially nc top coat that is designed to produce a wet look finish as the wax finish. Waxing lacquer application can generate smooth surface finishing and wet looked and with the selection of the desired gloss then we can get a satin finish with soft and smooth feel. Find it more at : waxing lacquer