Smudge Pad to Make Antique Finishing

Smudge pad is the padding stain technique to make smudge effects or dirty spots in the finishing look. It is a special technique to make antiques dirty and old-looking. It is one of the finishing techniques to form and make the antique. The smudge pad will give the spotty and uneven coloration that will bring the dirty, old, and antique to the furniture product. It can also be used to make special finishes, such as tortoiseshell finish or eggshell finish. The smudge padding technique is also needed to make a marble finish or a lapis lazuli finish. 

Smudge pad is performed by using a stain pad, a special stain that is designed to be applied by padding technique. The pad stain is made from dye stain dissolved in the alcohol or ethanol. The alcohol solvent is not too strong in dissolving lacquer or sealer, making the padding can be done more easily and safely. The pad can color the lacquer of the sealer surface without too much “bite” and damaging the film layer. (See our previous article: pad stain application in the wood finishing.). Now in this article we want to share about smudge pad finishing technique.

antique smudge finish

Here is the finishing process: 

• Preparation of the surface finish.

Pad stain is usually performed on the second sealer or first top coat layer when the coating film of the finish layer is thick enough. The thick layer of film makes the pad stain application can be done easily. When the film coating is thick enough, the finishing color can already be looked at clearly, since the color and effect of the finish addition by the pad stain can be checked and observed clearly. 

The finishing schedule for the antique smudge finish are usually as follows:

      1. Stain:
      2. Glaze
      3. Sealer 1
      4. Sealer 2
      5. Smudge pad
      6. Top coat
      7. Flow coat 

Make sure the sealer is dry and well sanded. A smooth and even surface is needed before the smudge pad operation. 

   

the 2nd sealer ready for smudge pad

• Preparation of the pad stain.

Use the pad with the proper color. The final finishing color will be obtained by the blending and combination of the color at the sealer with the color of the pad stain that is applied to it. Prepare the cloth that will be used to do padding according to the effect needed. Use a soft cloth from the substrates that can absorb the stain. The striped pattern of the cloth will determine the pattern resulted by the smudge pad. Choose the pattern of the cloth that matches the desired effect of the smudge pad. 

 padding the stain to make "smudge looked"

• Padding the pad stain.

Place the pad stain in a cup or other small container, then dip the cloth in the pad stain. Make the cloth wet with the pad stain, but keep it not too watery. Then padding the wet cloth to the surface of the finishing layer. Padding the stain gradually until the entire surface is covered by the stain.
View and check the padding effect that is obtained; make sure that the effect obtained is according to the effect we want. There are many effects that can be created by this technique. You can do many trials about padding to see how many finishing effects we can make. 

 the smudge pad effect finish

We can still do correction at this step if necessary; if the stain is too strong, it can be reduced by rubbed with steel wool or wiped with alcohol. While some more pad stain can be padded more to add more color and smudge effect.

•  Clear coat application

The clear coating application is needed after the finishing and color effects are obtained. Make sure we already have the finishing color and effect we need before we apply the clear coating, since the correction to the pad stain can be done after it is layered with the clear coating. Scuff sand the surface to smoother the surface, then layer the top coat or sealer on it. To produce a smooth finishing surface, usually we need two layers or a more clear coat on the padded surface.