golden ear

Chapter 341 Conscience Lives

"Actually, as an old craftsman for decades, there are still many problems in practice." Lao Li said seriously: "Traditional Chinese furniture has always been known for its reasonable structure, but in many cases, there are still unreasonable phenomena. It is the Ming-style furniture made during the period when furniture-making skills reached its peak, and it is no exception."

"For example, the shape of some furniture's legs, feet, hunchback and other parts does not conform to the wood, and it is easy to break at the turning point. When determining the value of this kind of furniture, it is inevitable to discount it. Most of the ancient furniture handed down from generation to generation are high-quality. Made of wood, the mortise and tenon joints are generally of high quality, but there are also cases of shoddy workmanship.”

"The identification method can be mainly judged from the firmness and tightness of the mortise and tenon. It can not only reflect the level of operation during production, but also sometimes reflect whether the drying treatment of wood before production is sloppy. Because wood is used for production after strict drying treatment, it is easy to shrink, deform and crack. and other good furniture in every respect."

Wu Tianyuan has a deep understanding of this point. As the saying goes, the problem of the release of wood is that new wood has a lot of moisture, and the wood is unstable, and it is easy to break when the environment changes.Therefore, materials that can really be used as furniture have to be stored for at least a few years, or even more than ten years.This is why the really big and good materials are generally in the hands of big players.

"The eye-catching part of ancient furniture is often the eye-catching carving part. The quality of the carver directly affects the value of the furniture. The carvings on ancient furniture are generally divided into three types: openwork carving, flat carving and three-dimensional carving. The quality of the workmanship depends first on whether the shape is realistic, whether the three-dimensional effect is strong, and whether the layers are clear."

"Look at whether the carved holes are smooth, whether there are file marks, whether the roots and feet are clean, and whether the foundation is flat. Generally speaking, in addition to considering the difficulty of the craft and the accuracy of the operation, the key is to evaluate the furniture from the overall Whether it has a moving texture and a vivid charm."

Wu Tianyuan couldn't help sighing, the furniture is still deep in water!It has been handed down for thousands of years, and how many masters continue to research and develop. The higher the technology, the higher the level of counterfeiting, especially old-fashioned ones.

Driven by huge profits, who can guarantee their conscience and live a life of conscience?Old man Ouyang also told Wu Tianyuan in private that he had done a few bad things when he was young and had suffered a lot before he knew the benefits of being honest.

"The preciousness of the materials used in ancient furniture is generally arranged as follows: huanghuali, red sandalwood, chicken wing wood, nanmu, mahogany, iron wood, rosewood, beech, etc. If it is ancient furniture made of the same material through the components, according to It is relatively easy to determine its value in terms of timber by the arrangement of the above-mentioned preciousness of wood."

"However, among a large number of handed down products, some are often only made of beautiful materials on the surface, and some inferior materials are used on non-surface parts such as drawer boards, back boards, and straps; It is pasted on the surface of the fetal bone made of general wood, that is, "sticker skin".

"Some furniture is simply pieced together from a variety of different woods. The determination of the value of these furniture materials depends first on the ratio of good wood to inferior wood in terms of volume; second, it depends on the use of good wood in the main parts of the furniture. .”

"If the volume of a good piece of furniture is more than 50%, the furniture can generally be named after this kind of good material, such as mahogany tables, beech chairs, etc. However, sometimes craftsmen use short materials, small materials, and edges of good materials. Although the good material is greater than the inferior material in the volume of the whole piece of furniture, inferior materials are used in the main parts, such as the legs, faces, edges, etc. of the furniture. The value of the material used in this way is Big discount."

Lao Li warned: "This point must not be ignored. The so-called material mainly refers to the wood of the same tree, which has certain differences in color and texture due to different parts or changes in the angle of the saw when cutting the material. The difference between good and bad, such as sapwood is usually inferior to heartwood; the wood grain at the scars and branches is not as beautiful as the unblemished wood grain.

"Actually, among the ancient furniture handed down from generation to generation, there are very few intact ones, and a large number of them are restored objects. The standard for the restoration of ancient furniture should be "restore as it is" and "restore the old as it is." To achieve the above restoration Standards, we must use traditional crafts, original materials and traditional auxiliary materials, coupled with excellent operating techniques."

"To identify the restoration quality of ancient furniture, we can first look at the restoration of the original structure and original parts. Those whose structure, style, material type and workmanship are consistent with the original can be regarded as high-quality restoration. "Reborn", "renewed" and rough workmanship, relying on coloring and caulking are examples of failure, and the value of the original is damaged."

"Secondly, check whether traditional auxiliary materials, such as bamboo nails, bamboo pins, hardwood pins, animal glue, etc., have been used in the restoration, and whether they have been replaced by modern materials such as iron nails and chemical adhesives? These are all reference factors to determine the final value .”

Wu Tianyuan has read the books. Generally speaking, apart from a large number of restored ancient furniture, some of the ancient furniture has never been restored. A small amount of this part of ancient furniture is intact, but most of them have one or the other. Defects, such as loose, falling apart, missing parts, broken, cracked, deformed, decayed, etc.

Mr. Wang Shixiang said that the principle of judging whether ancient furniture is well preserved mainly depends on whether its structure has been damaged, the degree of damage, whether parts are lost, and how much is lost.Those original structures that have not been damaged, and the components are basically complete, but only loose or falling apart, can still be regarded as well preserved and hold the original value.

And because of missing parts, breaking, cracking, deformation and decay, the ancient furniture with components must be replaced, so the complete original value cannot be preserved.Its value depends on the preservation of the main structure after restoration.

"Look at some of the furniture in Rongbaozhai, they are all carefully cared for. Wet cloth is the natural enemy of ancient furniture, because the moisture in the wet cloth will form particles after mixing with lime sand. Once the furniture surface is rubbed, it is easy to cause certain damage to it. damage, and people are usually not aware of its hazards, and are used to wiping furniture with a damp cloth."

"Therefore, this point is especially worthy of people's attention. Dust has accumulated on the ancient furniture at home. It is best to gently brush off the dust with a fine, soft brush, and then wipe it slowly with a dry cotton cloth. If the furniture is stained If it is stained, it can be wiped with a small amount of water-based or oil-based cleaner."

This time it was a worthwhile trip. Through the old man Ouyang, he hooked up with Lao Li, and he had a quota of several hundred tons of Indian red sandalwood imports in his hand. After being processed into furniture by ancestral craftsmen, his value doubled. It is another flagship product of Tianyuantang. .

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(End of this chapter)