Evening star., 1940-08-03
Easy-to-Use Filler
SimpIifies Task Of
Furniture Painting
Prevents Much Of
Color Variations in
Amateurs Staining
By LAWRENCE CROLIUS.


Few people can resist the urge to
buy a can of paint and a brush
and try to decorate some piece OF
furniture which has seen better
days. Offhand, it would seem like
a pretty simple procedure, but much
to the embryo painters disgust 1t
very often turns into sorry look
ing bit of work. With the advent
of so-called modern furniture and
built-in breakfast hooks. game rooms
and various types of "dens" there
has been more and more activity in
this field and as result many
more disappointments.
After you have painted or stained
a piece of wood that looked like a
good, smooth subject, you probably
have been highly irritated by the
unevenness of the job and Won
dered by what magic painter can
obtain his usual slick finish. Soft
woods in particular seem to be the
ones that cause the most trouble,
because some parts of the grain are
more absorbent than others, max
ing the finish 60 on not too evenly
Obviously the way to avoid these
heartaches is to seal the pores of
the wood and bind the grain down
into place. With this done you can
paint or stain to your hearts con-
tent and no dark splotches will rise
to meet the eye.
Paint engineers have long real
ized the need for an easily used
filler of this type, and now you can
get one which makes the whole
job amazingly simple and easy.
This new material is brushed on
as usual, and after it has dried in
a few hours it is lightly sanded.
you can then brush on any type or
shade of stain that you desire and
rest assured that it will go on even
ly. The color depth of the stain
can also be controlled by wiping
1t to the desired shade after it has
been brushed on. After staining
you can either finish the job off
with a coat or two of varnish or
rub it down with oil.
This filler is colorless. too, by the
way, so that if you want to obtain
one of the new natural wood fin
ishes which are now so popular you
can do so by simply giving the wood
a coat of varnish without the in
termediate coat of stain.
If you would also like to try your
hand at decorating woods with all
kinds of new finishes. like the mod
ern bleached" effects, driftwood,
maroon or forest green, you can
also use a pigmented filler which
successfully DISCUSSES wood grains
and enables you to stain them any
way you want to. This new ma
terial is put on after the filler just
described has dried and wiped down
to the desired amount of disguise.
Then, after a light sanding, you
put on the stain coat and finish it
off with either fiat or glossy coat
of varnish. Natural wood bleached
effects are a cinch with this new
material on your eager brush.
After many years of being catch
alls for all kinds of materials found
around a kitchen the modern kitch-
en- cabinet has at last come into its
own. The confusion of kitchen i'm
plements mixed up with foods has
been largely eliminated, and SIM
plfed system of storage compart-
ments and handy drawers makes it
an efficient machine. Hardly an
irch of space has been lost in the
latest cabinets which are now on
the market, and after little ex-
perience housewife should be able
to save many valuable minutes and
tiring steps by centering her activi-
ties largely in one place.
.These new cabinets aren't just
glorifed adaptations of the old ones
we used to buy. They are engi-
neered for ruggedness and perma-
nence as we'll as convenience and
combine the last word in metal
furniture construction. For exam
pie, they are made of steel, which
will not warp or sag, throwing
drawers out of gear and coming to
pieces in all too short time. Their
surfaces are finished inside and out
with a tough white baked enamel
coating. the parts are all welded
together. and they are, of course,
equipped with cadmium and chro-
MUM plated hardware from fasten-
ing bolts to door hinges.
All sorts of convenient new ideas
have been built into these new
cabinets. For instance, there is no
need for latches and catches on
doors because of concealed action
spring hinges. Drawers slide in and