34d 



Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



January 25, 1917 



stock was not fit to ship. The manager's attention was 

 called to it. 



'"Well, what can you do about it?" asked the manager. 



"I can do anything you want done except foot the 

 bill," answered the foreman, in a way that made the 

 manager realize that there was going to be some expense 

 attached to the thing. 



"It is up to you now to make them right, so that we can 

 get them shipped out," said the manager. 



"I can make them so that we can get them shipped 

 out," replied the finisher, "but it will be impossible to 

 make them right." 



"I don't understand you," said the manager. 



"Well, you see it is this way," said the finisher. "The 

 fiber of this veneer is very badly ruptured and there is 

 every reason why the next coat of varnish should check 

 along the line of these ruptures as there was for this coat 

 to check." 



"Won't your varnish fill up these checks?" asked the 

 manager. 



"Yes, but that is not a guarantee that the varnish will 

 not check again." 



"But these checks did not show up as bad as this be- 

 fore the stock was finished," interrupted the manager; 

 "and I believe the checks are in your finish and not in 

 the veneer." 



"As you say, the checks you see here are not in the 

 veneer, but are in the finish. At the same time, the 

 veneer is checked, as was shown before the goods were 

 finished. Now, these checks in the veneer are the cause 

 of the checks in the finish. Some people have the idea 

 that a finish is put on wood to keep it from checking and 

 going to pieces; and if the goods go to pieces after they 

 are finished, they contend that the finish is at fault. This 

 is all a mistake. A finish is what its name implies — 

 merely the final touch which gives beauty and luster to 

 what is, or should be, a perfectly constructed piece of 

 furniture. 



"Instead of the finish being expected to hold the 

 veneer together, the veneer should be in such shape that 

 it will hold the finish. When we put the varnish on this 

 veneer, the latter would expand and contract with the 

 various changes of temperature, and as everything fol- 

 lows the course of least resistance, the expanding would 

 not take place evenly over the whole surface, but would 

 follow along the line of these ruptures in the veneer. 

 This expanding and contracting might continue for a 

 long time without having any perceptible effect upon 

 the finish, if the varnish remained soft and elastic. But 

 as the varnish dries and becomes less expansive, the con- 

 tinual strain along the line of these checks is too much for 

 it, and it gives way. The more varnish there is on the 

 goods the worse the checks will look. This is on the 

 same principle that a crack in a mirror looks worse if 

 the glass is one-half-inch thick than it would if the glass 

 was only one-thirty-second-inch. Then, again, the rub- 

 bing breaks into these checks, helps to open and widen 



them and make them look worse than when the varnish 

 was in the gloss. 



"As I said before, we can refinish these goods and 

 make them passable, so that they may be shipped out, 

 if they are not left to get too dry before they are rubbed. 

 But here is a point to be remembered: They can never 

 be made as good as they would have been had this 

 refinishing not been necessary, because the weak spots 

 are still in the veneer and are liable to break out again 

 after the varnish is good and dry. And the cost of 

 refinishing is likely to be more than the cost of good, 

 sound veneer would have been in the first place." 



"Well," said the manager, in a tone that was unusually 

 mild for him, "just go ahead and do the best you can 

 with them, and I will try to see that no more such veneer 

 comes here;" then to himself, as the finisher retired, "I 

 have learned that a man must know something about 

 veneer before he can become a successful buyer." 



Try This if You Are Liable to Fits 



The queer characters who people some of our southern moun- 

 tainous countries and who lived for the most part, or who formerly 

 lived, in absolute isolation developed some peculiar habits, some 

 astouishing superstitions, most of which came seemingly from 

 nowhere and would be scoffed at and ridiculed by anyone not a 

 native of that region. It seems, though, that the more ridiculous 

 and far-fetched the superstition, tlie stronger the hold it had upon 

 its promulgators. 



Probably no one looking at the little cut aecompauying this item 

 would have, without reading the story, the remotest idea of what 

 the wooden plug stands for. This plug came from a three-foot 

 walnut log that was being cut into veners at the plant of the 

 Roberts Veneer Company, New Albany, Ind. This log, with a 

 good many others and preceded by many more, came from the 

 mountainous country of central Kentuck}', from the grassy hollows 

 where real walnut still grows. This plug, cut with a sharp instru- 



uiout of some kind from a piece of walnut wood, was inserted in a 

 round hole bored into a tree possibly a hundred years ago by one 

 of the mountaineers of that time. Before the plug was placed into 

 the hole a tuft of hair cut from the head of the man doing the 

 operation was pasted onto the end that lay nearest the heart of 

 the tree. The superstition was, and we presume still is, that 

 anybody given to fits could get rid of them for all time by cutting 

 off such a tuft of hair, sticking it onto the end of a plug which 

 should be securely driven into a hole bored into a walnut tree. 

 The fits leaving this person would then be transferred to whomsoever 

 was so unfortunate as to find the plug when the tree was cut down. 

 The finding of these plugs and many other interesting objects — 

 some of which, however, are more dangerous to veneer knives than 

 they are interesting — lends the possibility of interesting speculation 

 to the opening up of almost every walnut log. 



