Part 6

It would be perfectly possible to construct an entire house of such wood-cement, and one which would be perfectly durable, or even more so than wood, since beams and planks thus made never crack, split, nor warp. With it the boldest vaulting and arch work can be more easily made than in stone or with wood, as the latter is usually worked. As builders in Turkey form domes by making circles of clay or mud, and gradually add to the first a smaller one, so by using wood-paste the largest space could be covered or domed over without building a scaffolding. There are many places in the world where (as in the prairies of America, Russia, and Hungary) large timber is wanting, but where small wood for sawdust is more available, and yet where, as cattle abound, glue would be very cheap. This material deserves more serious attention than it has ever received.

More than twenty years after I had invented, or at least projected and put in practice, this method of making artificial wood, I found the following in the _Manuel Général du Modelage_, par F. Goupil; Paris, Le Bailly:--

“To make vases, take fine dry sawdust and pass it through a sieve. It may be made into a paste with a compound of turpentine, resin, and wax. Or mix the adhesive with five parts of best strong white glue (_colle de Flandre_) to one part of fish-glue. Melt them separately, ... pour them together, boil to a proper consistency, and mix with the sawdust. By this process figures can be cast which, when finished by hand, exactly resemble carved wood.”

Another recipe is to take 750 grammes of strong glue to 1½ kilogramme of gall nuts. To be mixed cold. Mix in hot water with sawdust.

Since writing the foregoing I have found the following recipe in a MS. of 1780, a family heirloom kindly lent me by Miss Roma Lister:--

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“_To cast Wood in Moulds as fine as Ivory, of a fragrant Smell, and indifferent Colours._--Dry Lime Tree wood sawdust in a pan by a gentle fire, and beat it to a fine powder in a stone mortar. Sift it through Cambric, and keep it in a dry place free from dust. Then add to an equal quantity of Gum Tragacanth and Gum Arabic 4 times the quantity of Parchment Glue. Boil them in Pump Water, and filter through Linen. Stir into it the Wood powder till it becomes of the substance of a thick pastry; stir it all together, and set it in a glazed pan in hot sand, for the moisture to evaporate till it be fit for casting. Mix your colours with the Paste, and to give it a Scent put Oil of Cloves or Roses or the like, which, if you please, you may mix with powdered Amber. Anoint the mould with Oil of Almonds, and put your paste into it. Let it dry for 4 or 5 days, then take off your mould, and the Images will be as hard as Ivory. You may cut, turn, carve, and plane this wood, and it will have a fine scent. The mould may be Plaster of Paris, but it were better made of metal.”

I would add to this, that where heavy pressure or hand-rolling can be applied this becomes really hard. Also note that any light, dry wood of fine texture can be dried and powdered for this purpose. The paste, even with common fine glue, can be used for very fine repairing. By sifting and pulverising, the dust may be made as fine as flour. A little calcined and powdered glass adds to its strength.

To make _panels_ for furniture, walls, or boxes, take firstly a thin panel of seasoned wood, fasten two strips of sheet-tin across the back to prevent warping, and make or apply the cast to this. Very beautiful work can thus be produced very cheaply.

It may be here observed that this principle of mixing a powdered substance with glue or gum or an adhesive runs through all the arts of mending. The powder of cocoa-nut shells, slate, of paper, plaster of Paris, of leather, clay, lime, fine sand, and many other substances, can all be combined with adhesives, acids, or chemical solvents in such a manner as to form what may be called generically _cements_, or substances, or _pastes_, which become hard. Any glue or gum, or liquid which will make two surfaces adhere, can be mixed with most organic or inorganic hard substances in powder so as to form a paste which, when dry, forms a solid, hard substance, because the grains of the powder are thereby cemented together. Most of these yield to the action of water, but there are a few which resist both water and fire, all of which will be described in this work.

Broken ebony can be filled in cracks with a very neat and dainty paste or cement made as follows:--Take dried rose-leaves, or any others as soft, steep them in just enough water to soften them, add of gum-tragacanth and gum-arabic just enough to make a paste, and sufficient ivory black to give it an ebony colour. Macerate the whole in a mortar. In the East a few drops of otto of roses or of geranium are added. From this heads are made, also medallions, or any other small objects. The composition sets very hard, and much resembles ebony. I have made many small objects of it myself, and can testify to its excellence. It is in this manner that the black rosaries from Constantinople are made.

A very good cement for filling cracks in furniture or other woodwork is made as follows:--One part of finely powdered resin and two parts of yellow wax are melted together, and to this is added two parts of finely pulverised ochre, or other suitable colouring earthy substance. This is an excellent cement in all respects, except that it yields to great heat. For all such repairing sawdust and glue is much to be preferred.

In repairing furniture, remember the screws hold much more firmly if they are just dipped in boiling beeswax or turpentine. If you are not accustomed to screwing or nailing, just make a hole with a brad-awl, else you will find the screw or nail going out of the side of the box, or in some other undesired direction.

Clamps, or pieces of wood connected by screws, ties, or elastic bands, are indispensable in much glueing pieces together. They are, however, easily made. A good clamp can be made by bending over the two ends of a strong piece of wire. Hammer the ends into the wood.

Glue is more elastic when mixed with a little glycerine. This should be borne in mind when mixing glue with sawdust to form artificial wood, and, in fact, in many manufactures and combinations where it is specially desirous to have a certain degree of toughness or flexibility in the object made.

To utilise waste matter is allied to mending, which is only preventing waste. For this purpose common wood-shavings may be used for a pretty art. Take good shavings of any wood, and after moistening them with glue or gum tragacanth and arabic, press them flat. Trim them with scissors into leaves, or make them into flowers, and attach them together. Then pour over them liquid plaster of Paris, in which there is gum-arabic and alum dissolved. Take a bush, or plant without leaves, and gum the leaves to it or to its twigs. Cover bare places with the gypsum. When dry varnish the whole. A Professor HEIGELIN, in Stuttgart, once had an exhibition of such work. Frames can be decorated in this manner. Paint, gilding, and enamel, or bronze powders, can, of course, be applied. Shavings combined with weak glue submitted to pressure form artificial wood or boards, which can be improved by further combination with waste-paper. Made with a solution of alum it is fireproof. Its strength will be in proportion to the pressure applied. It can often be employed in repairing when suitable wood is wanting, and has the advantage that it can be turned to any shape.

The reader can easily satisfy himself by experiment that these artificial woods made from sawdust or shavings, combined with adhesives, are very easy to manufacture, very cheap, and, when properly made, extremely strong. When strong pressure or rolling can be applied, the quantity of adhesive may be diminished. Linen or muslin rags, cotton-wool, or any textile fabric can be added to the shavings, as well as waste-paper of all kinds. Anything fibrous or stringy will aid in the binding.

This subject may be studied in detail in a work entitled _Die Verwerthung der Holtzabfälle_--The rendering valuable of Refuse-Wood, such as Shavings, Refuse Dye-Wood, &c., showing how they may be converted to Artificial Wood, Fuel, Chemicals, Explosives, &c.--by ERNST HUBBARD; Vienna, price 3 marks.

Wood of all kinds is in America sawed into such thin veneers that they are used to serve as wall-paper, being attached with paste. When damp they bend like paper. Such veneer is very useful for repairing wooden surfaces.

Common putty is not always to be trusted in for repairing wood. It sometimes shrinks, and is never very hard. The glue with glycerine and sawdust or cocoa-nut dust is preferable.

“Scratches and chance cuts may be remedied by merely melting or washing and rubbing in with cold water. But for most small defects a _filler_ is used. This is a kind of paint or liquid cement, the object of which is to fill up the pores of certain coarse woods and make the surface fine. Soft wax, flour, and varnish are used for this purpose.”

Any dealer in paints and varnishes will supply a filler for any special work.

Staining or colouring wood is an important part of repairing. “Oiling alone is a kind of colouring, for all oiled wood becomes much darker in a short time.”[2]

Soda dissolved in water gives to oak wood a much darker tone. Dark tea and alum is also useful, and still better very strong coffee. Also porter or beer mixed with umber. Also a decoction of walnut-leaves boiled down. In using these or any other colours the following rules must be strictly observed:--(1.) Use a sponge or brush, and do not apply the dye freely or pour it on, as you will run great risk of warping the wood or making it split. (2.) Exercise the greatest care in drying it near a fire. (3.) Do not expect to colour all at once by a profuse application. However light the colour may seem, always when it is dry rub off the colour with a rag or chamois-skin, and then make a second wash. This process will make the dye strike in deeper and last longer.

STEVENS’ Stains, also those of MANDER, are very good and strong. They generally require dilution.

Ammonia is much used to give wood a dark rich colour. Wood thus treated, if afterwards exposed to the smoke of a wood fire, assumes a very ancient appearance. Bichromate of potash with water is a good dark dye, but it must be carefully handled, as it is very poisonous and injurious to clothing. It is used to give a waterproof quality to certain cements.

Good writing-ink is a very good black dye. When it is quite dry, oil, rub, and polish it, and the ink will resist a great deal of wetting.

It should be remembered that with ink, as with dyes, there should always be at least two applications, and that the first should be very thoroughly dried, if possible, in a strong light, though not in sunshine, before the second is laid on. Three coats of blackest ink well dried in, then rubbed in well, and finally oiled, form an almost waterproof cover.

When panels of marquetry or of inlaid wood of different colours are broken away or require to be replaced, it can be done in the following manner:--Take a panel of very firm fine white wood--holly is the best; next to it Swiss or German larch--draw on it your pattern, and then with a penknife go over all the pattern, cutting into the panel about a quarter of an inch, or rather less--in no case far enough to cut through. Then carefully fill all these lines with a firm cement, and let it dry well. Then with a dye--not with paint--color each piece appropriately. The cement and lines will prevent the dye from spreading from piece to piece. This is known as Venetian marquetry. When finished, apply _Soehnée_ varnish, and rub down very carefully by hand. It is a very beautiful and easy work, not to be distinguished when well done from real inlaying. Very cheap and plain old furniture can be easily made very elegant by having panels, &c., of this work applied. The reader may begin with a small box or three-legged stool, working directly on the wood, and will then probably be encouraged to proceed. Dark brown patterns on light yellow wood look well.

This work is very easy and elegant, very little made, and may be therefore profitable. Any kind of light or white wood, such as deal or pine, may be used for common decoration. Cheap violins and guitars are sometimes made into handsome ornaments for rooms by this process. For designs for this purpose consult the Manuals of Design, Wood-Carving, and Leather-Work, by the Author (Whittaker & Co., No. 2 White Hart Street, London, E.C.).

Marquetry may also be mended by making and colouring wood-paste, in which case prepare the ground with great care, by roughening, to hold the glue; also by using coloured cements, such as bread, well worked with powder and glycerine-glue.

It does not seem to occur to many people--even to those living in the country--that there is a great deal of strong, plain, useful furniture which can be easily made at home at no very great expense, boards of good quality being cheap enough. With a few lessons from an expert, or even with the study of a good elementary manual of cabinetmaking, any amateur can succeed. Whoever can make a good box can make an antique chair, and this can, however plain, be carved, stained, or marquetried into beauty; but let him beware of sawed curves.

Where there are worms in furniture or other wood, they should always be very promptly exterminated, else they will destroy it in time. To remove them, dissolve 2 drachms of corrosive sublimate in 2 oz. of methylated spirit and 2 oz. of water, to be applied freely with a feather or brush. This is an unfailing remedy; but the mixture is poisonous, and therefore should be kept labelled out of harm’s way (_Work_, Sept. 1892).

In restoring or repairing woodwork we must have some knowledge not only of paints, varnishes, putties, and filling, but also of agents which prevent organic change or are applicable to peculiar accidents. One of the principal of these is known as _knotting_. Its properties and general nature are freely explained in the following article from _The Decorator_, Sept. 1892:--

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“‘Knotting,’ or, as it is usually written, _Patent Knotting_, is a quick-drying, semi-transparent fluid. It is made from naphtha and shellac; hence its quick-drying nature. The knots of woodwork, especially pine, contain much resin, which gradually exudes from the surface. This resin will speedily darken, and ultimately destroy, the covering film of oil paint with which woodwork is usually coated. The object of coating knots in woodwork with ‘patent knotting composition’ is to seal up, so to term it, the resin. In the earlier history of house-painting processes a mixture of red lead and strong glue-size, applied warm, was often used. The chief point in view is to stop the ‘cause,’ but without objectionable ‘effect;’ therefore the thinnest perceptible covering--so long as it is effectual--is the best. The _patent knotting_ of commerce is the article now generally purchased and used. The knots are given one or two _bare_ coatings--according to the nature of the knot, and the conscience of the workman. The best knotting is the colour of dark oak varnish; the worst is the blackest and dirtiest-looking. It always pays to have the best knotting, since ‘black knotting’ requires an extra coat of paint to cover the dark patches which ‘grin through’ any light tints. For the best work it is usually advisable--especially when the woodwork has to be finished, and perhaps hand-polished, in ‘ivory-white’ enamel--to have the knots cut out with a chisel or gouge, then fill up with lead ‘filling-up’ in distemper. I recently had to have the door of an elaborately decorated drawing-room so treated, since, despite being fresh knotted, the resin began to discolour the work, which had received some six coats of paint and enamel, ere the room was furnished--a very annoying and costly matter. Very occasionally knots are gilded over with best gold-leaf; this is generally conceded to be an effectual plan to adopt, when gouging is not resorted to, for finest work. Knotting woodwork is, therefore, not an insignificant detail of house-painting, especially when we are dealing with a door-side; that alone, when finished in hand-polished enamel, may cost a ten-pound note to produce. ‘Tin-paint’ will do for common priming; good linseed oil is the chief element required. All new woodwork requires three coats of good lead and oil paint before standing any time--viz., priming and two after-coats. This is known as ‘builders’ finish.’ When permanently decorated it usually requires ‘getting up’ to a proper surface, and two or three more coats.”

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It is sometimes an advantage to “gouge”--_i.e._, to cut--out a bad knot and fill the cavity with wood, wood-paste, or _carton-pierre_.

A very beautiful stain can be given to wood by rubbing it with nitric or sulphuric acid, and exposing it to the heat of a fire. In this way American hickory can be made to look like rosewood. Pine becomes red, which grows darker with increased heat.

MENDING FURNITURE.--There is but one rule for repairing creaky chairs and tables with loose legs. They must be _carefully_ taken apart, which can be done with chisels, a knife, and hammer, and then glued and screwed or put together again as they were originally made. The old-fashioned rounds or rungs of chairs, now so seldom seen, were a great aid to strength and durability.

I have already remarked that when a drawer in a bureau table is troublesome by continually sticking or catching, take it out, find where it rubs, and plane away the obtrusive portion. If it is made of badly seasoned, green, warping wood, nail across it strips of tin. To which I add that doors of closets, cabinets, &c., which are shrunk must have strips of wood glued to their edges. In some cases strips of paper will do as a temporary substitute.

It is no exaggeration whatever to declare that two or three centuries ago the slight and trashily made article of furniture was a great exception, while at the present day it is the well-made, durable article which forms the rarity--to the great shame, be it said, firstly, of all furniture-makers, and, secondly, to fashionable “taste,” which prefers slightness to strength.

This trashy and flimsy lightness is vastly to the profit of the cabinetmaker, since he can thus utilise the cheapest and smallest pieces of worthless wood by turning them into supports for light _étagères_ or shelves, cross-backs and legs of spider-like little chairs, and all parts of small curved sofas, which are to be duly puttied, French polished, or completely hidden in velveteen or rep. It is not unusual to see what is considered a handsomely furnished room in which there is not one absolutely well-made or strong article which would bear careful examination or turning up. It is a pitiful sight indeed to see a load of such furniture on its way from the cabinetmakers, or the mill where it is sawed out by steam, to the place where it is to be veneered or painted, glazed, and clothed into elegance. The pieces of refuse pine wood and American greenish-yellow poplar stuck together with glue, and as few short nails as possible, look so shammy and shabby! I have wondered, in beholding them, at the marvellous boldness of their makers, who could deliberately calculate the time that such stuff would endure before its _débacle_. And as it is all destined to be broken and mended sometime or other, it is the more necessary that the art of repairing should be studied. Unfortunately, badly seasoned deal cannot be repaired into well-seasoned oak. Yet he who will take the pains to ascertain the price of the latter will be amazed to learn that so few people have it made into good, solid, strong furniture. “It is not _there_ that the expense comes in.” If the reader, having some sense or taste in art, would make his own furniture, employing an assistant at six shillings a day to do the rough sawing and planing, he would find that he could have strong, substantial furniture; and if he would add to this so much knowledge of panel-carving as he could acquire in a few lessons, he might make it beautiful.

A CEMENT FOR WOOD is made as follows:--

Caseine 10 Borax 5

This is carefully worked into a thickish milk-like mass. It may be used as a glue for wood or as a paste for paper. It admits of many modifications. To make a very good waterproof cement for wood, as well as other purposes, take this cement when it shall have hardened, or after it has been applied, and wash it over frequently with a very strong extract of gall-apples. This forms, according to LEHNER, an insoluble union with caseine.

A CEMENT MUCH EMPLOYED IN CHINA to combine and make woodwork, basket-work, pasteboard, &c., waterproof is made as follows:--

Slacked lime 100 Stirred ox-blood 75 Alum 2

This is commended as being very strong and durable. It is probable that a slight increase of the alum in solution, or an addition of strong infusion of gall-apples, would improve it.

A WATER-PROOF CEMENT FOR WOODEN CASKS is made as follows:--

Strong solution of glue 10 Linseed-oil varnish 5 Oxide of lead 1

Boil together for ten minutes. This cement must not be brought into connection with lye (LEHNER).

A good, strong, cheap cement for joining wood with metal or stone is made with

Carpenters’ glue 50 Sifted wood-ashes 100

While the glue is soft stir into it the wood-ashes in greater or lesser quantity, according to their quality and fineness, till a syrupy mass is formed. Clay can also be combined with this mixture to make casts.

Common _peat_ of fine quality (for there are different kinds or degrees of it), carefully cleaned from sticks and fibres, combined with common glue infused freely with nitric acid, submitted to strong pressure, is said to form a valuable substitute for wood, which may be used not only for repairing, filling chinks in trees, making up decayed timber, &c., but also to form blocks and planks.

I have elsewhere mentioned that shavings are utilised in Germany. Combined with glue, infused with glycerine, and submitted to pressure, they form boards which are even less brittle than many which are in ordinary use. The peculiar advantage of this artificial timber is the limitless length of the boards which can be thus made, which is often a great desideratum in flooring, or indeed in any building where piecing should be avoided. A canoe can thus be made on another as mould, in which case the shaving-cement is to be hardened by rollers. There is a book on this subject, elsewhere mentioned.

It may be observed that, as long and broad timber becomes every year more rare and valuable, artificial timber from smaller plants must certainly take its place.

WHITEWASH FOR WOOD is rendered more durable and glossy by the addition of liquid glue, well stirred in. It is still further improved by the addition of milk. This lasts so much longer than common wash that it is in the end perhaps ten times as cheap. When well made it has been known, when applied to the exterior of certain Government buildings in Washington, U.S.A., to last for seven years. If colouring matter, such as umber, be added, let the latter be mixed separately with the glue, and very thoroughly, before it is joined to the lime. The addition of a few eggs to the mixture will improve it. The lime prepared with the following forms a still better and stronger wash, which is well worth the extra expense:--

Glue 60 Linseed-oil varnish 20