Help please! Black lacquer finish & Gluboost

[Ian Davlin The Looth Group]

It is a nice looking chair.

Black is a tougher than you would think color. There are a ton of different black, from what amounts to a very dark purple (see the black of a sharpie pen) all the way to that new fangled black that is so black objects look weird because a lack of shadows etc.

What I see in your project is a common problem which is your black is actually a very dark version of grey. There is a slight white component to the black of the original chair color.

There is another problem, which is sheen mismatch. Because of some boring stuff about light I don’t fully understand, if the sheen of the finish over the touch up is mismatched from the original, it will be impossible to tell if your colors are the same. One easy way to normalize sheen is to make the entire area wet with either water or naphtha. Naphtha if you have exposed wood is ideal.

The last thing that can make a subtle difference is to color of the finish. If the finish has yellowed over time. Or has a difference in clarity. Or really just any subtle differences, it can affect the visibility of the repair. The biggest one is yellowed lacquer though. You can replicate this by overspraying the touch up with some yellowed lacquer.

BTW. Degree of difficulty for this project is about a 7 out of 10. Very challenging to make unnoticeable. If the chair isn’t super valuable, I’d just add a little white to the black, get some GB fillnfinsh thin on it and buff it out. Unless you are super retentive, you will forget about it in a week. If you are super retentive, or related to someone super retentive, you might consider replacing the chair.

Hope this helps

[AMK]

Hi Ian,

Thank you very much for your reply. You are bringing up color considerations that I didn’t even think about! Beyond that, I think I need a bit more handholding in the form of one-on-one consulting session. Beyond the color issue that you noted, I’m also concerned about my technique with using Gluboost and have many questions about that. Including whether there is another product that could do a better job.

I do believe the chairs are worth it. I have seen them on 1stDibs and Chairish at about $2000/chair. Worth a little elbow grease if I can get it right. I’ve already reupholstered them, so there is that investment as well. Over all, they are top-notch quality and design but they are looking less-than because of the chips and nicks.

Do you or anyone in this group offer consulting services that could help me proceed more successfully with this project? Perhaps over Zoom or Meet?

Many thanks in advance,

Anne-Marie

[Ian Davlin The Looth Group]

I can certainly do a consult. This is a fussy bit of work though and is the type of thing that, on guitars, has broken the soul of quite a few repair people over the years. I don’t want to do any gatekeeping, but it would be good to be up front about what can be accomplished with a consult. It’s tough to encapsulate 30 years of experience in a zoom meet. Im willing to try though.

In terms of supplies, I wouldn’t attempt best results on this without an airbrush, all the equipment that goes with it, an assortment of dyes and pigments, a few different cans of lacquer from Mohawk, some very high powered lights etc. It’s also the type of thing I would have to take a couple swipes at to get to best results and best results still wouldn’t be 100% invisible. You could spend a couple hundred bucks on this.

Feel free to email me at ian.davlin@gmail.com to set up a meet.