IMPROVING THE APPEARANCE OF WOOD. 503 



The texture of valuable woods is imitated by stamping on 

 soft woods the characteristic marks of good woods, by means 

 of hot cylinders or plates on which these marks are embossed. 

 They cut grooves in the wood resembling sections of wood- 

 vessels, so that alder or beech wood may imitate Cedrcla 

 odi'rata for cigar-box wood. The texture also may be 

 imitated by graining, in which a ground-work of oil colour is 

 made, first, by laying on two coats of a colour lighter than 

 that of the wood to be imitated, and then, with a kind of 

 comb, or a fine paint brush, the veins, etc., are painted with 

 turpentine coloured to match them. Thus walnut is imitated 

 from alder and beech, mahogany from cherry-wood, rosewood 

 from sycamore, oakwood from spruce, pine or silver-fir. A 

 finer texture is obtained by branding. 



The best means of improving the texture of wood is by the 

 use of veneer, when softwood is covered by thin sheets of 

 a valuable wood. This cannot be called a falsification, for 

 veneering involves cheapness, reduction in weight, and pre- 

 vents warping. The woods of spruce, pines, silver-fir, limes, and 

 poplars are used as the substratum (Blindholz), whilst finely 

 textured and coloured walnut, mahogany, rosewood, bird's-eye 

 maple, ash curls or oak serve as veneer. By special arrange- 

 ment of the markings on the veneer, symmetrical figures are 

 produced that heighten greatly the beauty of the work. The 

 adjoining surfaces of the blind-wood and veneer are roughened 

 carefully with a special plane and the former covered with 

 glue on which the veneer is pressed. This plane has a row of 

 pointed teeth, instead of a flat cutting edge. 



2. Improvement in Colour. 



There are numerous materials for improving the colour of 

 wood. Thus bleaching is effected by destroying the colour- 

 ing-matter in wood by various chemicals that are rich in 

 oxygen, such as hydrogen peroxide and ammonia, sodium 

 or barium peroxides with oxalic acid, or silicates of alkalis ; 

 also with calcium-chloride and solutions of soda or potash. 

 Staining is done to give a fashionable colour to inferior wood, 

 cither by imitating the colours of exotic woods, or even 



