Deadening, Withering, Saddening Varnish

¶ Deadening, Withering, Saddening Varnish. This condition is really the loss of gloss, giving the varnish a withered, dead appearance. The cause usually may be traced to insufficient or defective under coats, improper filling or insufficient filling of the wood. The cause may be traced to under coats which have not been permitted to dry hard, causing the finishing coat to be absorbed in part by the under coats. This trouble is very common and occurs sometimes even in the best of shops.

¶ Some of the other causes for this defect are the spreading of varnish on unseasoned lumber, on composition panel surfaces which are very absorbent or upon paint under coats which are not perfectly dry. This latter is a very fruitful cause of the loss of gloss on the varnish. If the paint is not dry the varnish most certainly will sink in and go dead; the gloss is not there. There are no exceptions to the principle in painting, varnishing, shellacking, staining, enameling, etc., that each and every coat must be bone dry before another coat is put on. When a finisher violates that law he is in for trouble and he has it coming to him. The customer can hurry the finisher, but the finisher cannot hurry the coatings, beyond certain limits, without paying the price either in the appearance of defects or in the loss of durability. Certain chemical reactions must take place in all these coatings before they become dry and hard.

¶ Spreading varnish over porous, absorbent under coats of paint or enamel undercoaters results in the varnish sinking in and the loss of gloss. The spreading of polishes and waxes of certain compositions on top of gloss varnish will cause the loss of gloss even when the under coats and the varnish are correctly applied and dried. When too many coats of material making up the surfacing and coloring of the job are put on in one day deadening or sinking-in is an inevitable result. The addition of an elastic binder like varnish to japan color is apt to cause both deadening and checking of varnish. Japan color comes to the finisher with sufficient binder in it and any more added is detrimental.

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