Good ventilation is at all times of importance, and especially so in summer, both as tending to dry the varnish or shellac more evenly and rapidly, and as contributing to the comfort of the workmen.  The latter consideration is of importance even as a matter of economy, as men in a room the atmosphere of which is pleasant and wholesome will feel better and accomplish more than they could do in the close and forbidding apartments in which they sometimes work.

Any suggestion in reference to freedom from dust, as a matter to be considered in locating rooms for this business, would seem to be entirely superfluous, as it is clear that there is hardly any department of mechanical work which is so susceptible to injury from dust as the finishing of furniture, including varnishing and polishing.

Finishing rooms may be arranged in three departments.  The first should include the room devoted to sand-papering and filling.  These processes, much more than any other part of furniture polishing, produce dirt and dust, and it is plain that the room devoted to them should be so far isolated from the varnishing room as not to introduce into it these injurious elements.

Another room should be appropriated to the bodying-in, smoothing and rubbing-down processes.  The third room is for spiriting and varnishing, or the application of the final coats of varnish, which is the most important of all the processes in finishing.  It requires a very light and clean room, and a greater degree of heat than a general workroom.  It should, as nearly as possible, be uniform, and kept up to summer heat; in no case ought the temperature to fall below fifty nor rise higher than eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit while the varnishing process is going on.  Varnishing performed under these circumstances will be more thorough in result, have a brighter appearance and better polish, than if the drying is slow and under irregular temperature.  For drying work, the best kind of heat is that from a stove or furnace.

Steam heat is not so good for two reasons:  (1), it is too moist and soft, causing the work to sweat rather than to dry hard, and (2), the temperature of a room heated by steam is liable to considerable variation, and especially to becoming lower in the night.  This fire heat is as necessary for the varnishing room in damp and cloudy weather in summer as it is in winter.  At all seasons, and by night as well as by day, the heat should be as dry as possible, and kept uniformly up to summer heat, by whatever means this result is secured.  Varnished work, after receiving the last coat, should be allowed to remain one day in the varnishing room.  It may then be removed into the general workroom.

A remark may be proper here, viz., that there is sometimes a failure to secure the best and most permanent results from not allowing sufficient time for and between the several processes.  An order is perhaps to be filled, or for some other reason the goods are “rushed through” at the cost of thoroughness and excellence of finish.