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 Copyright© 2008,
Arslanian Restoration
1060 Davisville Rd.
Warminster, Pa 18974
Bucks County, PA
Southeastern, PA
Web Created By Sybonal
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Do all pieces require stripping?
No. Furniture finishes of certain types such as lacquer and shellac can be restored without stripping. The condition of the existing finish determines if the finish can be restored.
What is the difference between restoration and refinishing?
Restoration consists of doing structural and cosmetic repairs, such as veneer patching, followed by cleaning, abrading, and padding shellac or lacquer onto the existing finish.
Refinishing consists of removing the existing finish by hand applying a chemical stripper, sanding the wood, applying a stain and applying a new finish.
What is the difference between lacquer and shellac?
Lacquer is a man-made finish, which was developed after WWI. Lacquer is usually applied by spray gun. Lacquer is widely used on all new furniture since the 1940’s. Lacquer is also widely used in most refinishing shops today.
Shellac is an organic, natural finish created by the lac bug found in Indo-China in places like the country of India. Removing it from trees where the lac bug nests, dissolved and purified to different levels depending on its end use. Shellac is more flexible than lacquer and will not crack as does lacquer. Shellac is used in many industries such as electric motor winding coating, pharmaceutical and candy industry as coating and in antique furniture restoration. Since shellac was the prominent finish used in the 18th and 19th centuries, shellac is the historically correct finish to use in such restoration work. Additionally, shellac is the only FDA approved finish for children’s toys.
Shellac can be brushed, padded with cheesecloth –i.e.- French Polishing, and shellac can be sprayed too.
Furthermore, shellac is much more environmentally friendly in the manufacture and use of the product. The only solvent used is denatured alcohol, which is much less harmful to the environment than solvents used in lacquers.
What is French Polishing?
French Polishing is a method of applying shellac using fine cheesecloth which is folded into a tight pad. The process of French Polishing consists of several steps starting with “loading” the wood with shellac, cutting back this finish with fine sandpaper, further loading and filling of the wood grain with shellac, and additional cutting back and additional polishing with a thinner cut of shellac.
What is veneer?
Veneer is a thinly cut piece of wood applied over a solid wood core. Veneers are used to either enhance the look of the furniture by using exotic wood veneers alone or in combination with several species of wood.
In newer furniture this is the case with high-end furniture but veneer is also used in lower quality new furniture over a particleboard or other non-wood core. In this case, veneer is being used to create a cost-effective way of manufacturing furniture.
On true antiques and finer furniture, veneers were and are still used to create an enhanced beauty. Veneer does not imply inexpensive or cheaply made furniture. Many valuable antiques costing tens of thousands of dollars are veneered. Interestingly, Egyptians used veneers over 5000 years ago.
What constitutes an antique?
Many people have loosely applied the term “Antique”. The standard definition requires an age of at least 100 years. True antique collectors consider pre-1860’s furniture as antiques. This is due to the advent of the machine age whereby furniture was beginning to be mass-produced starting about 1860. This is not to say that pieces of furniture were not being hand or “bench-made” after this time and that many fine pieces of furniture were produced after 1860.
What type of glue do we use?
Animal hide glue is our preferred choice on antiques and early 20th century furniture since this was the type of glue originally used. Hide glue is not only very strong, it is also repairable and reversible and historically correct when repairing antiques.
Repairable means we can tighten a loose glue joint originally glued with hide glue by softening the hide glue with warm water and clamp. Sometimes we add a little bit of new hide glue and then clamp till hardened. Reversible means we can remove the hide glue with warm water.
This is not possible with yellow and white glues. When yellow or white glue dry out and your chair or other furniture comes loose, we must dismantle and scrape all the old glue off to bare wood prior to re-gluing. When re-gluing a chair originally glued with hide glue, dismantling is necessary when several or all of the joints are loose, but is not necessary to scrape the old glue off. The new hide glue will meld into the old to form a strong bond.
In fact, yellow and white glues will shrink and the joint will come loose in a relatively short time whereas hide glue will last for many years if used properly.
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August 07, 2008
Recent Work
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Arslanian Restoration is one of the Montgomery County area's top furniture restoration companies.
Keyowrds for this web site include:
Furniture Restoration | Furniture Repair | Furniture Refinishing | Montgomery County | Philadelphia | Bucks County
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