A polished choice

Jagvir Goyal

Woodwork in the house is either painted or polished in order to save it from the effects of weather and also to make it look good. Many wooden items are finished with laminates and don’t require any painting or polishing work. Other items such as doors, windows and ventilators are painted or polished as per the choice of the house owner. Let’s have a look at various aspects of painting and polishing:

Factors affecting choice

The choice of painting or polishing of woodwork is governed by four factors. These include cost, durability, time and finish. Every house owner has to carefully consider these four factors before making a decision to paint or polish. Switching over from one finish to another is another factor to be considered.

Paints for woodwork

Paints used as finishing material for woodwork are synthetic enamel paints. These are alkyd based and are available in matt, soft gloss, medium gloss and high gloss finish. Alkyds are modified polyester resins or binders having very high adhesive strength. Though synthetic enamel paints are given IS 2932 mark by the BIS but the paints available in the market are  richer and superior in specifications than BIS specifications. These special paints hold their own market segment and have long durability. While choosing paints, one should prefer to choose lead-free paints.  

Instead of buying readymade polish, polish material can be prepared too. For that, pure shellac (laakhdana) is kept dissolved in methylated spirit by the painters for some days. The quality of polish thus prepared depends on the quality of shellac and spirit which is not easily available. For 1 kg shellac about 7 litres of spirit is required. Painters and house owners now avoid preparation of polish material and choose readymade polish marketed by reputed manufacturers in the shape of sealers, thinners and polishes. 

Readymade polishes are clearly classified as polishes for interior and exterior surfaces. While buying polish for outer doors, it has to be ensured that the polish material being used is of exterior quality. However, in the Indian harsh weather, even exterior grade polish doesn’t last for many years.

Cost

Polishing the woodwork certainly proves much costlier than painting of woodwork. And the cost difference is not marginal but significant. Not only is the material costly but the labour component is also expensive. One has to ensure that the painter gang hired for polishing work is highly skilled. Its past performance needs to be checked. Otherwise you may end up with average polish finish even after incurring more expenditure on the polishing work. House owners who can afford to spend on polishing may choose it. The cost of sand papers itself, which are to be of genuine make for right preparation burns a hole in the house owner’s pocket. Different grade sand papers are to be used and higher is the sandpaper number, costlier it is.

Time factor

Time taken in polishing of doors and windows is much more than that consumed in painting of doors and windows. It can be twice or thrice the time taken for the painting work. Most of the time is consumed in the preparation of door and window surfaces. Different sand papers are to be applied, then filling of spots in woodwork is to be done and finer sand papers are to be applied again. This repetitive preparation process continues till the time the wood achieves a velvety surface. The wood surface become so smooth that you want to run your hand over it again and again. Thus, only those house owners who can afford extra time for finishing of woodwork should choose polishing of doors and windows over painting. 

Durability

Painted surfaces have much more durability than polished surfaces. Painted surfaces remain the same for years together. Both in case of painted and polished doors and windows, internal doors and windows remain unaffected for many years but external surfaces get spoilt due to the harsh weather.  In case of polished surfaces, a white film begins to appear on the surface, making it look ugly. So durability wise, painted surfaces score over polished surfaces.

Thus, three factors are in favour of painted surfaces and one factor weighs in favour of polished surfaces.

Switch over

Another factor to be kept in mind is the switchover factor. House owner may undergo a change of heart and want to change the woodwork finish. It is easy to switch from polish to paint but difficult to switch vice versa. Paints provide opaque finish while polish provides transparent finish. Once an opaque paint finish is chosen for doors and windows, it becomes very difficult to convert it into transparent finish at a later stage. One has to get all the paint on wooden surfaces burnt by using blowlamps. 

The finish factor

There is a huge difference in the final finish of painted woodwork and polished woodwork. Polished doors and windows present a much better finish than the painted ones. The biggest beauty of polished doors and windows is the visibility of wooden grains through the polishing work which is mostly semi-transparent. This transparency lends a classy look to the doors and windows. Most of the house owners choose matt finish in polish. It is seen that greasy finger marks are easily visible on gloss finish. 

Matt polish finish looks dull. Glossy finish looks gaudy and showy. It is best to choose semi-gloss finish in polish. It lends a soft, sophisticated sheen to the doors that looks beautiful. 

We generally consider an item as new till the time some shine is left in it. This factor is also taken care of by the semi-gloss finish.  Paints are opaque and cover the grains of wood to give it a uniform colour finish. Though in their case also, one may choose from glossy, matt and semi-glossy finish but painted surfaces in no way match the polished surfaces.  

Often, brush marks are visible on painted doors and windows. These marks can be eliminated by using a roller. After the application of paint by use of brushes, roller is finally run over it to give a smooth, polish like finish. Any layer of thick paint flowing downwards also gets eliminated while applying the roller. However, the visibility of wood grains gets sacrificed while using paints instead of polishes.

Polish Vs woodwork 

Polish material used on woodwork used to be classified as French polish, melamine polish or polyurethane polish, popularly called PU polish. Now, only melamine and PU polish are available. Melamine polish adds great beauty to the woodwork and resists all sorts of scratches and stains. PU- based polish finish is costlier than melamine polish. It also resists all scratches and stains. Melamine or PU finishes can be applied with brush or spray gun. Use of an air compressor and spray gun is the universally adopted method now though lot of precaution has to be taken during spray of polish in saving the surrounding surfaces from the spray. Painters, too, need to take care against inhaling the polish spray.

— The writer is HOD and Chief,  Civil Engineering Department in a Punjab PSU