Woodworker's Journal 2010-34-2, страница 70
Finishing Thoughts Approaching a Stickley Finish By Rob Johnstone Here are a few simple steps that will provide a finish on white oak that evokes the Stickley furniture of years gone by. By using a few products available on the market and taking a bit of time for trial and error, we arrived at a suitable color and finish for the Arts & Crafts Blanket Chest in this issue. April 2010 Woodworkers Journal ustav Stickley was a _ fanatic. It is said of him that oven as an old man — living at his daughter's house after his business had gone bankrupt — he continued to experiment with finishing. One can only wonder what his daughter thought about that. So it is 110 surprise that when you think of Arts & Crafts furniture built in the Stickley style, that the finish is a critical component of the piece. White oak furniture manufactured in Stickley s factory was fumed with ammonia lo create its rich, dark color. The ammonia fumes reacted with the tannin in the oak to create a deep hue that could then be topcoated with varnish or lacquer. But when we decided to build a Stickley-inspired blanket chest (page 26), we did not really give the idea of fuming the chest much serious consideration. Fuming with ammonia is a nasty task that can actually be dangerous lo do. (However, it is possible lo do — as shown in the photo on the opposite page.) The other challenge is that every piece of white oak will not react to the ammonia to the same degree. Stickley addressed this problem by fuming his parts before he assembled the furniture so he could select out pieces that were not the right color. We would not have that option — so we came up with an easier staining solution. A Simple Plan There are a variety of products that can give you a good-looking Arts & Crafts type finish. Michael Dresdner often recommends asphaltum, which can be purchased as roofing tar and cut with mineral spirits. Or, there are stains that claim to be "Arts & Crafts" that might do the trick for you. We chose to take a deliberative process to gel lo the look we wanted. First, we got our hands on a box of finish sample chips (available |
