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Finishing Camphor

Shellac (camphor)
Shellac is a finishing material that is very popular and widely used in the 19th century until the early 20th century when it began to be replaced by nitrocellulose and finishing materials of another. Shellac is made from natural resin produced from a type of insect life of existing plants in India. Shellac can produce film that can function to protect the wood surface underneath.

In Indonesia, camphor is a very popular material before eventually being replaced with modern finishing materials such as paint (coating). In the past this shellac is the only finishing materials that can be used for the wood finishing process that can produce finishing with transparent color which can display the beauty of colors and wood grains. Even now finishing with transparent colors are still referred to as the color of camphor.

To be applied, shellac flakes dissolved in alcohol is necessary or ethanol until everything melts. Shellac is a liquid, here called camphor and this is the finishing materials are widely used to process the wood finishing. Spirtus is a solvent that is widely used for making camphor here because they were cheaper.
Shellac was also available in liquid form, but usually liquid shellac is not widely available in stores because it is not durable. Shellac will be able to last longer if stored in the form of pieces and dissolved as necessary will be used only at the time.
This camphor naturally have yellowish brown color, so this application with camphor will produce the film layer is yellowish brown. This of course will affect the resulting color finishing. Finishing the resulting color will be the result of a combination of yellowish brown color of the layer of camphor wood with a base color underneath. Finishing color produced from camphor will become increasingly yellow camphor applied if the layer thicker.

If desired camphor with a stronger color then the color pigment can be added into the solution. Ocher pigment is often added to the mixture realtif camphor because this material is cheap and easily obtainable. The addition of color should not be too much. Because if too much pigment in the mixture will be able to reduce the strength of camphor. Total pigments were added to the mixture should not contain more than 10% of the total mixture. For finishing with the older color then this should be combined with camphor applications stain. Perform application stain on raw wood in accordance with the desired color, (use a color triangle principle for the selection and mixing of stain) and then do a dry waiting camphor applications on top of it until the desired thickness was obtained.

Applications camphor
Camphor is usually applied with topical or wiped way to the surface, although how spray can also be done for this material. Dip a cloth into the mixture of camphor and then this cloth wiped or applied to the wood surface to flatten. Wait till the camphor layer is dry, then do a basting again with camphor was to obtain the desired thickness. To obtain a more flat surfaces and smooth then it should be done sanding in between basting this camphor. So a surface which is dry camphor sand until smooth and flat surface coated with camphor new again thereon. We recommend using white sandpaper (sandpaper stearated) with grade 400 or 360 to obtain a smooth surface more quickly.

Camphor can also be applied by brush, but a relatively rough surface of the brush will leave brush lines on the surface of the resulting film.  Actually there is a special brush with a soft head like a cloth that can be used for the application of camphor with the surface smooth and flat, but the brush was a bit hard to get here.

Author : Draker_Ster is the owner of the website which specialists in offering indoor and outdoor furniture.