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Jun 14, 2024You’ve probably seen Ferdinand Tschinkel’s work without even realizing it. The 77-year-old craftsman has been painting the doors of Ridgewood and Glendale in their distinctive faux wood grain for nearly half a century. Tschinkel’s work — he uses a comb and brush strokes to mimic the patterns of wood rings — is indistinguishable from the real thing. And while he hesitates to call himself an artist, he can spot shabby work. “It looks like spaghetti,” Tschinkel says of the copycat doors he sometimes spots around the neighborhood. “Maybe the owner did it themselves.”
But wood graining is a dying art: Tschinkel says he’s the only person he knows left doing it professionally in the area, which means the doors, which need to be redone every 15 to 20 years, may eventually go extinct. The Ridgewood-based design studio Karlssonwilker has partnered with Tschinkel to run wood-graining workshops (and is currently selling a jacket printed with his designs), which he hopes will find him a successor. “I’m the last one standing,” he says. “I don’t know how long I can do it.”
Tschinkel charges around $600 to wood grain a door, a process that takes three days to strip, prime, grain, and varnish.
Tschinkel first learned this technique from another local wood grainer in the 1960s and can still spot those doors. “You see very few of those, but they’re still there.”
Tschinkel says the trick in wood graining is getting the colors right: “You gotta mix it just perfect.”
Around 15 people attended Tschinkel’s workshop and another one is in the works.
Tschnikel insists that it’s all about repetition: “Make a board and practice, practice, wash it off, do it over again — that’s all it takes.”
Tschinkel charges around $600 to wood grain a door, a process that takes three days to strip, prime, grain, and varnish.
Tschinkel first learned this technique from another local wood grainer in the 1960s and can still spot those doors. “You see very few of those, but they’re still there.”
Tschinkel says the trick in wood graining is getting the colors right: “You gotta mix it just perfect.”
Around 15 people attended Tschinkel’s workshop and another one is in the works.
Tschnikel insists that it’s all about repetition: “Make a board and practice, practice, wash it off, do it over again — that’s all it takes.”