How do they do that?

[Jason Zwiefel]

My wife wants me to make her some furniture,(four poster bed, china cabinet, end tables, ect...) but wasn't sure about what style she wanted. I took her to the local amish store to look around and she fell in love with their work--a hard act for me to follow! Of course, we don't really have much for a bedroom set--a particle board nightstand and an old wooden peach crate, so she said anything I make will be better than what we have now.

She asked me how they finish their work to make it glass-smooth and shiny, I thought it was laquer finish, but I don't really know for sure...Anyone know? Thanks.
Jason

[Jason Beam]

It could be just about any number of surface finish. Lacquer, Polyeurethane or one of the many UV-cured finishes.

My MIL shops at an amish furniture store in Wisconsin that appears to have quite the setup. They're certainly not against burning an electron or two, that's for sure!


I'll bet you'll find the biggest factor in a high-sheen finish is attention to detail and meticulous process. My end tables have a fairly close-to-glossy finish, but just aren't quite 100% high gloss. Mostly because I didn't want quite that shiny. But with patience and diligence, I could have gotten a dead-flat super high sheen with a few more coats of Poly and a lot of careful sanding between coats. Maybe even some final polishing with rouge

[Danny Thompson]

I don't know the direct answer to your question, but I have had great success achieving a perfect smooth finish with several thin layers of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane, sanded with 320 or better between coats.

[Jim Becker]

Likely lacquer or a conversion varnish of some kind--and sprayed on. It may or may not be a water borne at this point, depending on local VOC laws, but probably not. Yet. It may or may not have been rubbed out, too. You'll not find "polyurethane" on furniture like that, especially from an established maker. Poly was designed for floors and is, in fact, hard to get a glass finish on it since it's abrasion resistant. Rubbing out is abrasion. A non-poly varnish, however, will rub out very nicely if a hand-applied finish is necessary.

[Leigh Betsch]

It's an entire process that starts with the correct finish and progresses through multiple steps of hand rubbing the surface flat with multiple abrasives. There are several top coats that can be used, I like 5 to 10 coats of laquer before I get to serious about leveling and flattening. You need to use progressivly finer and finer abraisives, starting at 320 sand paper progressing through 1500, and 2000 paper and finally finishing with polishing compounds. I also use some 40 micron and 9 micron lapping film before the polishing compounds. Not a process for the impatient but it does give a great looking high shine finish with increadible depth. There are some good books that explain it.

[Joe Chritz]

Most of the furniture I have looked at is finished in a pre-cat lacquer. A few shops use a conversion varnish as an upgrade.

If you want a similar finish without the risks of solvent base get some Target USL. It is about as close to pre-cat as you will get in a water base. Maybe not chemically but in handling and physical properties.

Most of the finish is in the prep as mentioned above.

Also most if not all major furniture places (which a lot of the "amish" furniture is produced at) utilize professional finishers. If all you do is spray finish all day you will get pretty good in short order.

Joe

[Mitch Barker]

I like shellac or a poly/blo/ms hombrew finish. The key to shine and a silky feel is to rub out the finish with 600-1500 wet dry sandpaper lubricated with water or MS. After rubbing out, a coat of paste wax gives it the feel you just have to run you fingers over...