The Art of Graining

Firstly let me say, I thought I would introduce this blog based on what I know. What follows is only my opinion (based on what I have experienced, heard, done) I am not a painter, I have not received any training, I am simply someone who has basically, over the last 50 years, self taught things like painting traditional flowers and landscape scenes as well as graining, by watching, listening, questioning others but most of all by practicing – and practicing – and practicing .
Graining paints come in a variety of ‘colours’ to suit all types of wood that you are trying to replicate, including tints like Mahogany, light oak, dark oak, pine, pitch pine, ash etc. Myself I use Ratcliffe’s graining products and my personal choice of tint is Light Oak. Graining of surfaces, as well as making the timber look like better quality wood than the pine planking used for the internal fittings also covers a multitude of sins. Nail heads-splits-knot holes- graining does a very good job of hiding them.
I have heard lots of people in recent years talk about scumbling, I can honestly say that I have never heard this term used when describing the decorative paint process used to roughly represent wood grain in back cabin’s, I have always simply known it as graining, although the paint itself is called scumble. With a little practice and some basic tools, it is possible to produce most of the patterns I will try to illustrate and describe.
Before I start there are a couple of really important basic ‘rules’ that will make a great difference.
1. Always prepare the surface well especially if you are going to use graining combs as they glide over the surface a lot easier giving a more realistic finish, for if you keep stopping and starting and hesitating with the travel of the comb the result looks like what it is. Someone rubbing prongs over a wet painted surface.
2. Always give the surface a minimum of two coats of the graining undercoat, even is the surface looks like it has covered well after just one, the second coat makes the surface more silky and the combs/brushes glide a lot easier.
3. When you paint the back cabin in graining undercoat, make sure you also paint a piece of scrap timber (a piece of plywood is ideal) this you can use to try out your graining paint before you start.
4. Always allow plenty of time between undercoating and graining, no matter how tempting it is to have a go, even if the undercoat feels dry. Due to the high amount of white spirit used in the graining paint it will ‘pull’ the undercoat if applied too soon. I always leave at least two weeks between undercoating and graining.

In this picture the graining paint is starting to pull at the undercoat.

TOOLS
The tool kit required for graining is quite simple, cheap and easily assembled. It consist of brushes, combs, cotton buds, large glass ‘pickle’ jar, dish big enough to dip your 4” brush in, white spirits, straight edge, loads of rags.
Brushes. (graining) A selection of stiff bristled brushes to cover a variety of widths ranging from ½” to 4” . Recommend the cheapest brushes possible like these value packs they sell in B & Q or Wickes etc. which have very stiff and coarse bristles. (For painting the undercoat use a normal decent quality paint brush)

Graining Combs These come in two types, metal and rubber.

Metal combs. These are getting harder and harder to get hold of they consist of a thin spring steel sheet in various widths (1”, 2”, 3”) and are about 4” long. The one side has a series of regular sized slits resulting in the teeth of a comb about 3” long.

By drawing the toothed edge across the painted surface it scratches the grain on it. Personally I think metal combs give a ‘scratched’ surface and I much prefer soft rubber combs which are easier to grain with and give a much softer finish.

Rubber combs. These are much the same as metal combs except the teeth are much shorter, only about 6mm. The other beauty of rubber combs is you can easily make your own. All you need is a sheet of soft rubber about 2-3mm thick. Using a strong pair of scissors or even a Stanley knife first cut it to the size you want (1”,2”,3” wide by 3-4” long, then cut a whole series of vee nicks along one edge about 2mm wide with 2mm gaps in between.. Try and keep the nicks all about the same size and equal distance apart to make a standard comb. Make another set now with slightly bigger nicks, say 3mm, then a set 4mm. I also have one that’s about 5” wide and the nicks gradually get bigger along its length from nicks 2mm wide up to nicks 8mm wide. (These sketches are not to scale the rubber between the nicks on the smallest size would be much smaller, only about 1-2mm)

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Speciallity combs. These are for producing grain patterns that are found in timbers like pine where the grain follows around each side of a knot hole etc. They are like a block of rubber or plastic which has a curved working surface with circular, concentric ridges on it. These can be bought from places like B & Q , Wickes, Dixons etc.

Cotton buds. These are used for putting the seams and joints in flat panels such as a metal cabin top of plywood lining of a back cabin where you want it to look like planks. Used in conjunction with the straight edge.

Large glass ‘pickle’ jar. Used for mixing your graining paint in.
Dish. This is to hold the graining paint in when using it and has to be big enough to dip your 4” brush in.

White spirits. To be used for thinning the graining paint. (as well as washing brushes.

Straight edge. This consists of a straight piece of timber about 25mm x 10mm and what ever length you need to draw a line on, with a wood screw about 15mm from each end srewed into the wood with the points sticking through about 10mm. I usually fix a small block to the mid point on the same side as the screw heads as a handle. I will explain how this is used in the techniques section.

PREPARATION
Ensure the surface to be grained is dry and preferably fairly flat and smooth ( although you can grain over very rough surfaces, the graining combs, brushes glide better over a smooth surface.)

BASE COAT
Nothing special about this as it is just like painting with any normal paint, just give the whole area two good coats and don’t forget the practice piece.

TOP COAT
First of all mixing. Graining paint is more like a paste and if you try to use it straight from the can or even with not enough thinning (hence the practice timber you painted when undercoating) it dries far to quickly not giving you time to work the grain and ruins the graining effect, far too thick a contrast between the lines in the graining as well as being far too dark a colour.

The paint has to be thinned using white spirit. One thing you have to do is to make sure you have enough graining paint mixed to grain everything you want, for if you run out you will find it almost impossible to match the colour with the next mix. What I tend to do is have a very large pickle onion type glass jar, tip the whole tin of graining paint in it, wash the tin out with white spirits then add white spirits to about the same quantity. The best test is to position your practice piece you prepared earlier in the vertical position and paint a thin layer of graining paint on it. It should cover the surface very easily and evenly without being that runny that it runs down the surface, also it should remain workable for at least 20 minutes to half an hour. At this point you can also get a good idea of the final shade of graining you are going to produce.

VARNISHING
Always finish off with at least two coats of a good quality clear yacht varnish – never use polyurethane varnish, especially externally.
I have now decided to do this blog in two parts as it is so big. Part two will conclude with the various techniques I use and some pictures of the finishes obtained. Cheers for now until part two but until then, as always
Don’t bang ‘em about
Blossom