Unfortunately, I have yet to find a book that has documented the beginnings
of wood finishing on furniture from ancient times until now. (I'd pay big
money for it if someone ever gets the research together.)

A very simple way I can see that wood finishing got started is...people who
used leather found that rubbing it with the fat of the animal kept the
leather from drying out and cracking. Someone later applied this concept to
wood using the oils from plants. I understand that many ancient Japanese and
Chinese people had techniques for oiling wood (and later techniques for
lacquering it.)

I think the first thought was how to protect the wood for what ever reason
(elements, warping, etc...) The techniques that people found works become
standard looks for wood that some people find attractive. Different finishes
and looks for wooden furniture have gone through fads throughout 'modern'
history. For example, milk paint finishes in early America. Perhaps shiny
wood equals modern looking to many people in this era. (And I'd prefer shiny
real wood to that paper- laminated pressboard crud that can be found even in
pieces of 'high end' furniture.)

Personally, I'm most interested in making what people would call 'rustic'
furniture. Beat up and dull equals cool to me. However, as a lot of the
things I make are going to be used outdoors, I try to find a way to protect
it without making it look shiny and new.
I certainly agree that some indoor pieces can look stunning without any
altering sealant on it. For me, it's just a matter of what use it's going to
get. However, to each their own.

My $1.50 ~ keep the change
~Jen


"charlie b" wrote in message
...
Many of our preferences are subconscious, often buried there by Madison
Avenue to get us to buy Brand X instead of Brank Y.
LOTS OF SNIPPING FOR SPACE THROUGHOUT
With this idea in mind, consider the following.

Before catalyzed lacquer, before poly, before shellac and maybe even
before bees wax and oils, somewhere way back when, shiny wood wasn't
possible, or at least hard to achieve. OK, so if you rub a really
smooth stone fairly hard on a piece of wood, it'll get shiny. However,
at some point in history, "just the wood" stopped being good enough.
Somewhere back there the wood that had been handled a lot got literaly
hand polished enough from the "oil" and abrasion of fingers and hands to
get shiny.

But over the eons humans found ways to make wood shiny without handling
it a lot and caring for it over generations. And it seems that the Quest
For Shiny
continues to this day. Finishes with "diamond hard", "crystal clear" and
"hi-luster" (don't you just love how the marketing crowd try and change
the spelling of words?) There are finish spray "systems", airless,
HVLP! I'm waiting for Powder Coated Wood Finish.

Why SHINY!? More specifially, why make the whole piece shiny? Why try and
make wood look like it's under glass? Why not just use "wood grained"
formica type stuff if that's what you want?

Why not just sand to 180 or 220, or better yet just a finely scraped
surface (they were getting wood reallysmooth long before sandpaper was
invented) and wipe on (and off) a couple of coats of oil -boiled linseed
oil, "teak" oil or "danish" oil if you want to accentuate the grain? On
the visible wearing surfaces add a coat of wax or two or maybe a coat or
two of shellac .
If "wood" is an important thing in your woodworking, why not, on your
next project, go with a finish that enhances it rather than "protects"
it?