Wood 1010 Wood and Finishing Technology: Applying Finishes - Spraying

Understanding how to spray a finish can be a very important part of finishing new wood, or re-finishing. In Wood 1010 - Wood and Finishing Technology, we cover many different spraying techniques, we examine a number of different spray guns and delivery systems, and we learn how to properly maintain our spray guns, including how to disassemble and reassemble our guns.
Students get plenty of opportunity to apply color and finish using many different spray guns that we have here at DCTC. Our shop is equipped with 2 spray booths.

Wood 1015 Spot Repair I: David Wendell Larson visits NIWF for a spot repair demo

Master spot repair artist David Wendell Larson came to visit and show his more than 45 years of spot repair expertise! David has been self employed since 1957, and has been operating his business in the Twin Cities since 1966, not to mention that he was the furniture conservator for the Groves Collection from 1976 to 1984 and for the Norwest Corporation of Arts Program from 1988 to 1998. He was a Member of the George Frank Study Tour to China in 1987 and to Paris & London in 1994. He is a contributor to Professional Refinishing magazine, and we are pleased to have him on our Advisory board as well. David is always a welcome addition to our classroom, we thank him for his visit, and look forward to next time!

Past Grad Dave Smith takes on The Office Credenza

Past Grad and owner of Fresh Air Finishers in South St. Paul, Dave Smith, shared one of his past projects with us. Dave had to take care of some problems in this office, all the work had to be performed on-site, so here is a brief overview of a day in the life of an NIWF grad.
You can see that there was blushing, peeling and cracking on the finish.



So after masking off the office, it is time to strip the old finish that is failing











Then, after careful preparation, it is time to apply color and spray the new finish.
After much hard work, Dave's skilled hand returns the office back to it's rightful owners looking brand new!

Great work Dave, Thanks for sharing your work with us!

Wood 1010 Wood and Finishing Technology: Wood Identification

Wood & Finishing Technology is one of the most involved sections of the program. In this sections we cover so many topics; one of those is Wood Identification. Wood ID is important because different wood reacts differently to chemicals, stains, dyes and many other things. Wood, as an organic object, is not all created equally, and it is imperative that students know how to work with different woods and what precautions might need to be taken with certain woods, whether they are finishing, doing wood working, or trying to avoid possible health hazards.

Wood 1019 Spot Repair II: Jerry Behrens visits DCTC Wood Finishing Program to talk about touch-up work

Jerry Behrens was in talking with the students about some advance touch-up. He was happy to share his years of expertise with the class, do a demo, and was open for questions. Jerry, a former grad of NIWF (class of 1989), has also served on the NIWF board since 1992.

Jerry was the Touch-Up Technician for Gepharts Furniture, until he accepted a position as a Technical Sales Representative with Mohawk Finishing Products Inc. in 1992, he was awarded the National workshop instructor Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Rep, and Goal Buster in his first year with Mohawk! He was also a three time member of the President's Club (top 5 in company). Next Jerry accepted the Vice President position with national franchiser Kitchen Tune-up where he does technical training for new franchises and on-going support for existing franchises.
He has also wrote, produced, and hosted two Wood Restoration Videos.

Wood 1007 Methods of Fastening: Re-Glueing a chair

Methods of Fastening covers the dismantling and rebuilding of furniture joints. In wood working (Wood 1004) we learned how to repair or replace furniture components, now we take those repaired or replaced components and rebuild our furniture. Here you can see some chairs being re-glued.

Wood 1019 Spot Repair II: DCTC visits Schniederman's Furniture

NIWF students went on a field trip to Schniederman's Furniture warehouse and meet some of the graduates of the NIWF program. Kathy Morse (in the green shirt), a past graduate and now employee of Schniedermans gave us a tour of the warehouse and demonstrated some repair techniques as well. There were opportunities for the students to try these new techniques with the Master Technicians.

A Master Leather Technician at Schniederman's shows the students real world leather repair techniques on furniture that is soon to hit the showroom floor.

Students get lots of opportunities to see professionals working, it is crucial that they see the hows and whys of the entire process. To go out and see masters making a living using the same skills that they are learning at the National Institute of Wood Finishing in invaluable!

Wood 1004 Wood Working: Being Creative

Sometimes when we are making components for our furniture, we need to be creative. Here we needed a bead for a chair, instead of using the lathe for this small piece, we decided to do the work on the drill press.
Getting the detail of the bead was crucial to achieve the right look, we were at a loss for the exact right tool, so we made our own from a piece of tool steel. The drill press spun the bead, it was anchored below by a dowel, then the scraper was fed into the piece, while being stabilized by the block of wood behind it.
It is just this kind on craftsmanship that is needed when taking on antiques, as each piece was usually hand made and unique.

Wood 1004 Wood Working: Making Components

We are in the thick of our 4th of 9 sections. This is Wood Working (Wood 1004) where we start the section by learning how to sharpen out hand tools such as chisels, block plains, cabinet scrapers and just about anything that needs sharpening. After that the goal is to repair damaged wooden components, or, if something is missing, we must replace that piece. We work with both hand tools and power tools, including wood lathes, band saws, routers, table saws as well as hand saws, files, rasps, chisels and many others to hone our skills as wood workers so that we can re-create the original look and feel of furniture that has been worn, or damaged.
You can see in the photos, students are working in the power tool room creating various parts to go into repair work, or working with hand tools making new components. We also focus on veneer repair and hand joinery. Understanding of how furniture is constructed is an important part of knowing how to fix it in an authentic manner.
Although we do not build furniture in this section, we are re-creating almost an part of it in order to complete our repairs.

Wood 1019 Spot Repair II: DCTC Vists HOM Furniture

HOM Furniture employs several NIWF graduates. Today we are going on a working field trip to learn about the life of Spot Repair Technitions in the warehouse. The day was full of learning new techniques and the students having a chance to use their new skills of wood, leather and vinyl repair.

Wood 1019 Spot Repair II: Leather Repair

Spot repair wouldn't be complete without a working knowledge or leather and vinyl repair, as well as an understanding of upholstery. In Spot Repair II (Wood 1019) we cover Vinyl & leather repair. You can see the students working hard to repair and hide the damage done to these leather chair pads.

Wood 1019 Spot Repair II: Bondo fills on a chair

In Spot Repair II we are looking to do problem solving with our furniture. One option would be to replace the broken section or piece with a new piece of wood as we do in our "Wood 1004 Wood Working" class, but for Spot Repair, we are going to look to Bondo to fill and repair this chair. Bondo makes a durable repair, especially for larger repairs in high traffic areas or on edges where you need a strong repair.
Here you can see there was a pretty sizable chunk of the chair missing.











After mixing up some Bondo, we trowel it into the damaged area


Next we get a rough shape of the chair

Then we refine the shape, and prep the Bondo.

Next we paint in a background color and get ready to in-paint, where we mimic the appearance of wood.

The finished product should be unnoticeable to the untrained eye, with the look, feel and durability of the wood, as if the damage had never happened.