help with restoring Victorian faux bois trim

Hello,

I just bought a house built 1901 that has a significant amount of the original faux bois grain painted doors, paneling, trim, pocket doors, etc... Most of the original faux bois is in near pristine shape, unfortunately there are some sections that have taken some damage over time - nicks & gouges in doorways, holes drilled into the trim/panels, faded/worn finishes, and paint splatters.

My intent is to restore, or at least repair, as much of the damaged sections as possible. Does anybody have any suggestions or tips? Does anybody else out there have any experience with this kind of work? Or have you had any success?

I know a couple things about the way the way the practioners of this craft achieved this look- paint base coat over pine or other soft wood, then apply gel stains, use combs and brushes to "grain". Plus I am pretty sure the original finish was shellac.

I know that this subject is not the true "woodwork" that is mostly discussed around here, but I figured its related subject material, i.e. finishes, stain matching, and hey, it looks like wood!

thanks for the help!

Been a long time since I did any faux finishing but I recall that exponents of Modern Folk Art use an array of cunning little plastic tools to great effect in duplication the wood grain pattern. Try a local craft shop they may have something that could help.


Cheers


Steve

Unfortunately there is no hard and fast way to do this. And your results may vary. There are graining combs, most of the ones I've seen look a little like a variation on tile adhesive spreader. Theres also the wierd looking plastic jigger that you kind of rotate as you drag it across the surface. Both items are trying to give you the grain pattern.

The hard part will be establishing what colour materials you need to use. A lot will have some kind of beige coloured basecoat and then a darker near walnut coloured transparent finish used over the top, you can use something like stain/varnish products for this, or try and tint your own.

But you'll just have to play with things to see what gets you the result you're looking for. btw: holes just do what you'd normally do, fill them, just find a filler that looks like the darker sections of your grain look, should blend in unless its a big hole. Hard wax sticks are also good for smaller scratches/gouges just soften them up try not to melt it, rub it over the scratche/hole, rub with with the back of some sandpaper so that the friction picks up the excess wax.

Regards,