New developments in touch-up and repair.

Hard wax sticks are one way to touch up and repair a nicked finished piece - even at final inspection.

Despite careful handling during the production, shipping and installation of wood furniture and cabinetry, nicks and scratches are an almost inevitable fact of furniture production. On the shelves of most repair departments can be found shellac sticks, aerosol lacquers and touch-up markers - the bread-and-butter of many cabinet, furniture, flooring and piano repair operations. However, sometimes problems such as burn-in, overspray and dye separation occur, forcing manufacturers to completely refinish the piece.

In the past few years, new touch-up technologies have been introduced that reduce or eliminate these problems.

One new product making an impact is hard wax sticks. Hard wax is a meltable product that is between soft wax or putty sticks and shellac burn-in sticks. With a temperature-adjustable hot knife, the wax is melted and dropped onto the damaged area, which also eliminates the need for burn-in protection. Excess wax is removed while the wax is cooling. The workability of hard wax cuts repair time by up to 75 percent vs. repairs with shellac. As with soft wax, two colors can be blended to match custom colors. Since the hard wax finish is very hard, it protects the repaired area better than either soft wax or shellac.

Hard wax's major benefit is in its application. The burn-in process used with shellac sticks can sometimes bubble the paint. Often, manufacturers will refinish a large percentage of painted pieces because small imperfections in the wood or paint cannot be touched up without ruining the entire finish. With hard wax sticks, manufacturers can make touch-ups at final inspection, yielding major reductions in rework costs and cycle times.

For example, Wood-Mode, a high-end custom cabinet manufacturer based in Pennsylvania, successfully integrated the hard wax, as well as a new non-yellowing topcoat, into its production process about a year ago. Working with its consultant, Coatings Development Group, Wood-Mode was able to achieve a 50 percent reduction in refinish work.

Prior to integrating the wax sticks and aerosol products into its operations, Roger Swinehart, who manages Wood-Mode's final inspection area, said Wood-Mode had to refinish nearly 30 percent of its painted cabinets because small imperfections could not be touched up. Now, many touch-ups are made at final inspection.

Nozzles Also More Efficient

Aerosol sprays for finishing repairs have come a long way. Newly designed nozzle tips eliminate overspray, orange peel and clogging. The benefits of this new design are immediately apparent to users, who frequently have to wet sand and start repairs over when a tip clogs. The new nozzle creates extremely fine sprays that flow better and are more uniform, which help to eliminate this problem. Aerosols in clears and standard colors are commonly available, and some companies will even create special color aerosols for users with custom finishing needs.

Also improved are refillable felt tip pens that allow quick repairs, with color that does not separate in the tips.

"Most marking pens are colored with pigment particles that don't completely dissolve," said Rick Greene, president of a coatings consulting firm that worked with Wood-Mode. "In order to allow the particles through the applicator, the tips must contain a more porous medium. This allows color separation in the tip and on the wood."

Dye solutions, on the other hand, are completely dissolved in the solvent and stay that way, so they can be applied through felt. "The result is a bright finish that is more suitable for wood tones," Greene said. "These colorants are also available in a touch-up paint box, which allows operators to quickly mix colors to exactly match grain variations for fine repairs, or paint on with a thin brush to cover glue lines in a hurry. Dye solutions are also intermixable in liquid form to get an exactly matched color solution that is stable and can be stored a long time with no bronzing.

Audrey Pinkerton is the marketing manager of the Valspar Corp., distributors of Konig hard wax sticks.