The surface of woodwork, if the woods are valuable, is finished by _French polishing_. A solution of shell-lac is put on a rolled woollen rubber, which is then covered with a linen rag, on which the polisher puts a drop of linseed oil. He rubs this solution evenly over the entire surface of the wood as it passes through the fibre of the linen, smooth action being secured by the oil. It is laid on in successive fine coats till a glossy surface is obtained which is air and water-proof. For fine work the surface should not be so glossy as to look like japan work. French polishing preserves woods liable to split, such as oak, from the too rapid action of the air.
_Graining_ is an imitation of oak or other woods. A light colour, chrome yellow, and white, is first laid on, and glazed over with brown. While still wet, the brown is combed with elastic square teethed combs to give the appearance of graining. Larger veins are wiped out by the thumb and a piece of rag. All sorts of woods are thus imitated, and the work when dry is varnished over. Independently of any skill or deceptiveness, this broken painted surface looks effective and lasts long.
Of the propriety of such a decoration there are many doubts, for the discussion of which there is not space here. Marble graining has long been represented in Italy, e.g. in the loggia of Raphael in the Vatican. But in that particular instance, the painting is a _representation_, not an _imitation_. Wood graining is performed in all countries, and such imitations seem to have been practised by the ancients.
Mr. Norman Shaw is now exhibiting in Exhibition road examples of woods with fine grain stained green, red, and other colours, and French polished, the grain showing as if the woods were naturally of those hues.
For inexhaustible resource in tinting, polishing, and decorating wood surfaces, we shall have to learn from the Japanese, from whom probably the famous Vernis Martin was first borrowed in the last century. Much imitation lac-japanning was executed in this country during the latter years of the century. This work is still made in Birmingham. Pieces of mother-o'-pearl are glued on wood and the intervening surface, covered with lac varnish which is rubbed smooth, coat after coat, with pumice and water, till the surface of the inlaid pearl shell is reached, and the whole ground to a glassy polish.