US2055658A

US2055658A - Ornamental surface finish

Info

Publication number: US2055658A
Application number: US756603A
Authority: US
Inventors: Elmer J Grison
Original assignee: Western Electric Co Inc
Current assignee: AT&T Corp
Priority date: 1934-12-08
Filing date: 1934-12-08
Publication date: 1936-09-29
Anticipated expiration: 1953-09-29

Description

Sept. 29, 1936. E, J, RI ON 2,055,658

ORNAMENTAL SURFACE FINI SH Filed Dec. 8, 1934 INVENTOR E. J. GRISON A TTORNE Y are essentially variations in tint of the general UNITED STATES. PATENT OFFICE,

ORNAMENTAL summon Fnnsn Elmer J. Grison, Fanwood; N. 1., assignor to Western Electric Company, Incorporated, New York, N. Y., a corporation of New York Application December 8, 1934, Serial No. 756,603

'4 Claims.

This invention relates to ornamental surface finishes and to a method of making them and more particularly to an imitation wood finish to be applied to surfaces of wood, metal, artificial resins, stone and the like and to a method of making the same.

The characteristic appearance of the surface of a highly finished piece of wood in which the natural structure and color variations of the wood are disclosed under a transparent protectivecoating such as shellac or wax, is dependent on three principal coacting factors, namely, the general color of the wood broadly speaking, the grain or fiake-and-pore pattern itself, and a third pattern of broad irregular streaks which color of the wood. These streaks are much coarser than the fine elements of flake and pore which makeup the grain pattern itself, and the streak pattern seems to be independent of the fiake-and-pore grain pattern and to blend through it.

Some methods of making imitation wood surface finishes in the past have included steps or means for imitating the ground tone of the wood to be copied and imprinting or otherwise copying thereon the characteristic pore-and-fiake or grain pattern, and many such finishes have an excellent appearance. However, the importance and even .the existence of a streak pattern apart from the grain pattern does not appear to have been. hitherto recognized, nor the fact that the deep softness of appearance of a wooden surface depends in fact largely on the streak pattern. 4 I 7 One object of the present invention is to produce an imitation wood finish of improved nat uralness'and softness of appearance by means of a method which takes into account the existence of the streak pattern and employs means to reproduce it.

One embodiment of the invention contemplates an imitation wood finish characterized by including a special coating applied ina manner to represent the streak pattern of the wood to be imitated independently of the fiake-and-pore or grain pattern, and a method including the step of applying a special streak pattern coating.

"Other-objects and features of the invention will appear from the following detailed description of one embodiment thereoftaken in connection with the accompanying drawing in which the single figure is a diagrammatic perspective view of a ,piece of material having an imitation wood finish applied thereto in accordance with the invention, and in which the vertical dimensions are exaggerated for clarity.

In the embodiment of the invention herein disclosed, a piece ID of material to be given an imitation wood finish on its upper surface II is (CI. 41-26) Y prepared in any suitable fashion according to the nature thereof. If of ,wood, it may be planed smooth, brushed with a steel brush and a suitable liquid, or sanded, or otherwise smoothed.-

If of metal, stone or otherhomogeneously texon birch the following mixture has been found 20 to be'satisfactory for the ground coat.

2 lbs. Italian raw sienna ground in oil,

lb. Turkey burnt umber ground in oil,

34 pt. varnish, and 1% pts. turpentine.

' This ground coat ,-is laid on thickly enough or repeatedly to completely mask any underlying pattern and/or color, is dried, and sanded as may be requisite. v Over the ground coat is applied a special streak pattern coat Hi. This is a substantially transparent'coating carrying some pigment not necessarily the same but generally allied in tone and color to the ground coat. It may be satisfactorily applied by hand with a brush, or may be sprayed on and subsequentlybrushed to produce the re -quired streakiness. A suitable mixture touse over the ground coat described above for imitating walnut is the following.

\ 12 oz. Vandyke brown ground in japan,

4 oz. ivory drop black ground in japan,

1 pt. rubbing varnish, and;

- .1 qt. turpentine.

This streak pattern coating is finished in the usual way by sanding or rubbing after drying, and is substantially transparent,-its visual effect being to vary the tonal quality of the ground coat in streaks running generally longitudinally of the subsequently'to be applied grain or pore-and-flake pattern. .The visual effect is thought to be due also to the fact that the streaks of this coating "naturally yary in thickness so that the reflecting surfaces of this coating are not all in one plane, which adds to the liveliness of the appearance ofthe finished article. Thus the streak coating acts by changing the density of color of the ground coat and also by giving the flake-andpore coating an irregularly reflecting backing.

A flake-and-pore or grain pattern coat I4 is then applied in any suitable fashion, one method being by offset printing with a transfer roller from a photo-engraved plate copied froma specimen of the wood to be imitated, or from an actual piece of the wood itself suitably prepared to'act as a printing plate. Such methods are well known in the art and hence need not be described here in detail. The ink or color to be used for printing the flake-and-pore or grain pattern in imitating walnut in connection with the ground coat and streak pattern coatdescribed above may satisfactorily have the following composition.

1 lb. burnt umber ground in oil, and

;4 oz. japan drier.

One or more protective layers l5 of transparent material of any approved kind, varnish, shellac, lacquer, wax or the like may be applied over the flake-and-port or grain pattern coat and finished in any desired manner to give the customary brilliantly or mattly polished surface.

A characterizing feature of the invention is the discovery of the existence and of the importance to the appearance of a finished wood surface, of the broadly variegated one color streak pattern which seems to lie through both the monotone ground color of the wood and the minutely variegated and also frequently several colored grain or flake-and-pore pattern. The flake-and-pore or grain pattern derives its character from actual structural variations in the wood, from diiferent hardnesses in adjacent areas both small and relatively large, and from materials such as celluloses, lignins, resins and the like of different chemical composition and color in similar areas. The streak pattern on the other hand seems to be independent of the structural elements of the wood and is a variability of the shade or tint of the basic color in areas which bear no apparent relation to the structure or to the flake-and-pore grain pattern.

Adding a definite imitation of the streak pat-.

tern as taught by the present disclosure enhances the naturalness of appearance of an imitation wood surface markedly.

Although in the above, the streak pattern has been described as being applied before the flakeand-pore or grain pattern, equally satisfactory results are obtained in many instances by applying these two pattern coatings in the reverse order.

It will be noted that while the fiake-and-pore pattern is in some instances applied as a direct and substantially true copy ofthe corresponding feature of the particular piece of wood, the appearance of which is to be imitated, the streak pattern is preferably merely irregularly brushed on, not following any particular or definite pattern, except that its streaks run generally parallel to the alignment of the pore pattern.

The flake and pore pattern was discussed above as a single thing, although in fact it consists of two combined and related patterns, namely, the pore pattern and the flake pattern, which may in some instances be applied as separate coatings as by printing from separate plates. It is further to be noted when the port pattern and flake pattern are considered separately, that the elements of the flake pattern run across the direction defined by the alignment of the pore pattern elements} a fact which clearly distinguishes the flake pattern from that which is herein termed the is due apparently to structural difierences in the wood, the lighter parts being seemingly of dense? substance than the darker, while the streak pat tern runs indifferently through structurally different areas.

The embodiment of the invention herein disclosed is merely illustrative and may be widely modified and departed from without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as pointed out in and limited solely by the appended claims. In particular, the practise of the method of the invention is not limited to the particular paints, varnishes, and the like disclosed herein, but any analogousmaterials having the requisite characteristics may be employed therein.

What is claimed is:

1. A method of making an imitation wood finish having a pore pattern comprising aligned markings on a suitably prepared surface which includes the steps of applying a ground coat over the surface having the general color of the wood to be imitated, applying a varingly thick as well as varyingly dark coating of broad substantially parallel streaks over the ground coat to give the varying tone elfect of the streaks of the wood to be imitated, and applying a minutely variegated coating thereover to represent the flake pattern and the pore pattern of the wood to be imitated, the aligned markings of the pore pattern running substantially parallel to the streaks.

2. A method of making an imitation wood finish having, a pore pattern comprising aligned markings on a suitably prepared surface which includes the steps of applying an opaque ground coat over the surface having the general color of the wood to be imitated, applying a varyingly thick as well as varying dark substantilly transparent colored coating of broad substantially parallel streaks over the ground coat to give the varying tone effect the streaks of the wood to be imitated, and applying a minutely variegated coating thereover to represent the flake pattern and the pore pattern of the wood to be imitated, the aligned markings of the pore pattern running substantially parallel to the streaks.

3. An article having an imitation wood finish thereon comprising a ground coat having the general color of the wood to be imitated, a varyingly thick coating thereover laid on in. broad substantially parallel streaks varying in both thickness and darkness to give the varying tone effects of the streaks of the wood to be imitated, and a minutely variegated coating thereover to represent the flake pattern and the pore pattern of the wood to be imitated, the aligned markings of the pore pattern running substantially parallel to the streaks.

4. An article having an imitation wood finish thereon comprising an opaque ground coat having the general color of the wood to be imitated, a varyingly thick coating thereover laid on in broad substantially parallel streaks varying in both thickness and darkness to give the varying tone effects of the streaks of the wood to be imitated, and a minutely variegated coating thereover to represent the flake pattern and the pore pattern of the Wood to be imitated, the aligned markings of the pore pattern running substantially parallel to the streaks.

EIMER J. GRISON.