Varnish Problems & Defects in Varnishing

¶ We see about us remarkably beautiful jobs of varnishing on furniture and automobiles. In our homes and business buildings we like to expect equally beautiful varnishing to be done on wood trim, floors and cabinet work. None but those who know the exacting requirements to which the furniture finisher and the automobile painter hold themselves can appreciate the inconsistency evident in the expectations of those who want the finest type of finishing done on wood trim in buildings under the working conditions found.

¶ The furniture finisher and the automobile painter are tireless in their vigilance to keep out dust from their work rooms, to regulate the ventilation and to control the humidity of the air. In the factories of most modern design huge sums of money are spent in providing apparatus for the control of heat, air and moisture for the finisher.

¶ Is it any wonder, then, that the finisher who must do his work in new buildings and old, where he must accept conditions as they are, encounters varnish troubles? Even though the quality of the products used be beyond question, surface and working conditions are Sometimes such that a high class job is simply impossible of production.

¶ But adverse working conditions for varnishing can be greatly improved if the finisher but has a knowledge of the causes of the more common varnish failures.

¶ Some such failures are so complicated that it is sometimes impossible to diagnose the case because of lack of facts concerning what was done. The more common failures, however, repeat themselves so regularly when conditions are duplicated that there is little difficulty in pointing out the cause and remedy. The use of cheap varnishes, poor tools, improper under coats, application of varnishes on wet, dirty, cold and greasy surfaces account for a very large part of the troubles encountered.