Part 4
_Walnut._--Tree color; two-thirds white lead and one-third red ochre, yellow ochre and umber, mixed according to the shade sought. If veining is required, use different shades of the same mixture. (See article on graining).
_Yellow_, Light.--French yellow and white lead. A little red lead may be used.
_Another._--French yellow, white and red lead.
_Another._--A mixture of a small portion of Prussian blue, French yellow, white lead and Turkey umber and burnt vitriol, or litharge, will produce different shades of yellow, according to the preponderance of one of the above colors.
_Yellow._--Bright for floors, white lead, French yellow, chrome yellow a little, some red lead and litharge; mix with equal parts of boiled oil and turpentine and use it thin.
_Yellow_, Dark.--French yellow and a little red.
_Yellow_, Lemon.--Yellow pink, with Naples yellow. For distemper only.
MISCELLANEOUS RECEIPTS.
=For Iron.=--A good paint for preserving iron exposed to the weather, is made as follows:
Pulverized oxides of iron, such as yellow and red iron ochres, or brown hematite iron ores, finely ground, and simply mixed with linseed oil and a dryer.
White lead applied directly to iron is thought to have a corrosive effect. It may be applied over more durable colors.
Red lead, when pure, is very durable. An instance is recorded of iron painted with it having been under water for nearly 50 years, and had not been affected by rust.
Sheet iron, before being used for roofs or other outside purposes, should be heated and dipped into hot linseed oil, which will penetrate into it. Tinned iron in roofs has been found to corrode quicker than in former years, owing to the more general use of coal.
=Paint for Rusty Iron.=--Black Japan varnish, mixed with turpentine, to make it thinner if necessary, is one of the best preventatives; but the iron must be dry when you put it on. If you can warm the iron when painting it, so much the better. If not sufficiently opaque, you may put in dry finely pulverized paint, such as lamp-black. Red lead, with linseed oil is also a good paint for rusted iron; so are the mineral reddish-browns which consist of oxide of iron; they become very hard, and are used for the iron-work of the elevated railroads in this city.
=To Paint on Stucco.=--Great care is required in painting upon stucco, for the work must not only be thoroughly dry, but free from any liability of dampness; that is to say, the walls themselves must be dry. It is, consequently, usual to allow the stucco to remain for several months before it is painted; and this is especially necessary when it covers over a large surface, as in the walls of churches, chapels and theatres. If the paint be applied too soon, the work will have a blotched appearance, and be probably filled with small vesicles, formed during the evaporation of the water. When the work is dry, it may be prepared by covering it with a coat of linseed oil, boiled with dryer. This must be laid on very carefully, or the face will be irregular. The color may then be applied, and four coats will not be too much, the work being new. Persons are generally so anxious to have their buildings finished, that they disregard the future appearance of the work, and within a few weeks after the application of the stucco, cover it with paint. But it would, in all cases, be sufficient to wash the surface with distemper, as it would give a finished appearance to the building, and make it less necessary to hurry the work. When the work is sufficiently dry to receive the oil-colors the distemper color should be removed by washing, and when the stucco is dry apply the oil-color. The tints may be regulated by mingling different colors, as in all other kinds of painting.
Plastered walls should not be painted until they are thoroughly dry, and all settling in a new house has taken place. If painted too soon they will blister.
Unseasoned wood should never be painted, as it stops the pores of the wood and the sap acidulates, causing dry rot. Greasy surfaces must be washed with water mixed with lime or soda, otherwise the paint will not adhere to it.
=Mixing Quick Drying Paint.=--Venetian blinds should be painted to dry dead, then varnish; but few take this trouble. Mix the paint as under: White lead, boiled oil, and the least drop of turps; mix sufficient of each to form a creamy mixture; then add about 1 oz. patent drier to each 1 lb. of paint. If you want the paint darker use enough burnt umber to give the required tint. If you want to varnish, omit the oil and use turps.
=Transparent Paint for Glass.=--Take for blue pigment, Prussian blue; for red, crimson lake; for yellow, Indian yellow; and for other shades, a mixture of the appropriate primary colors. Rub them in a size made as follows: Venice turpentine, 2 parts; spirits of turpentine, 1 part, and apply with a brush. The colors are moderately fast unless exposed too long to direct sunlight. A solution of the various aniline dyes in shellac varnish has also been recommended.
=Gilding.=--Gold leaf is the only successful application. First put on a coat of Japan gold size, and when that is “tacky,” and nearly dry, lay on the gold-leaf and dab it with a small tuft of cotton-wool. Where you buy the gold-leaf you can buy a gilder’s tool for applying it; but in order to get a smooth surface it must (when perfectly dry) be burnished with an agate burnisher, which you will also get at the color-shop, but you will not be able to burnish gold-leaf on the bare wood. You can, if you like, varnish with pale copal varnish.
=Gilding on Glass.=--Glass letters are gilt the same way as you would a name on a glass door. You can easily get a good burnish if you take a little trouble. Get some of the best cotton wool at a chemist’s, and well polish the gold with it; the gold must be thoroughly dry. Then go over it with your size boiling hot; do not touch the same place twice with the brush, or you will bring the gold up; repeat the process three or four times, being sure to have your gold dry each time, the hotter the size the brighter will be the burnish; be careful, however, and not break the glass with the heat.
=Gilding Fretwork, etc.=--The first thing to be done is to whiten the work. To do this scrape some whitening very fine, place it in a pipkin with a lump of gilder’s size, and water sufficient to make it of the consistency of thick cream, when heated over a fire; then, with a camel-hair pencil, paint it on the object several times, allowing each coat to dry before applying the next. When the several coatings have raised it to the thickness of ¹⁄₁₆ in., set it aside for twelve or more hours, to harden; when hardened, smooth the surface with very fine sandpaper first, and finally with a piece of cork; when using the cork frequently dip it in water, and, when practicable, use it in a circular motion. Thus far successful, the next thing is to lay on the gold. To gild, then, dissolve some gilder’s--not common size--in water, and heat, and with a full brush lay it on the surface of the object. Cut the gold leaf, on a pad of buff leather, with a clean cut of the knife (much easier said than done; perseverance, however, with the cost of a book or two of gold mutilated, and a large amount of patience exhausted, will overcome the difficulty), to the size required; take these up on a tip (a row of long hairs placed between two bits of cardboard)--the professional way to do this is to strike the hair of the tip against the gilder’s own whiskers or hair--and gently lay them on the surface of the object, taking care that each succeeding piece slightly overlaps the preceding. When dry, a small piece of fine sponge, dipped in a weak solution of size water, should be gently passed over it to give a uniform appearance. If the bright gold requires to be deadened, deep ormolu should be used in a similar way after sizing. The yellow used for the ungilt portions consists of gilder’s yellow, dissolved in size water, and is put on with a brush.
=Painting on Gilded Panels.=--There is no preparation needed to paint in oils on a gilded panel. No mediums are required, the ordinary oil colors being used unmixed. If required to dry flat and to remain so, they are mixed with turpentine and left unvarnished. If the shiny look of oils is to be retained, they are slightly diluted with boiled oil, and varnish with white hard varnish when dry.
=Gilding on Wood.=--To gild in oil, the wood, after being properly smoothed, is covered with a coat of _gold size_, made of drying linseed oil mixed with yellow ochre; when this has become so dry as to adhere to the fingers without soiling them, the gold leaf is laid on with great care and dexterity, and pressed down with cotton wool; places that have been missed are covered with small pieces of gold leaf, and when the whole is dry, the ragged bits are rubbed off with cotton. This is by far the easiest mode of gilding; any other metallic leaves may be applied in a similar manner. _Pale leaf gold_ has a greenish yellow color, and is an alloy of gold with silver. Dutch gold leaf is only copper colored with the fumes of zinc; being much cheaper than gold leaf, is very useful when large quantities of gilding are required in places where it can be defended by the weather, as it changes color if exposed to moisture, and it should be covered with varnish. _Silver leaf_ is prepared every way the same as gold leaf; but when applied, should be kept well with varnish, otherwise it is liable to tarnish; a transparent yellow varnish will give it the appearance of gold.
Whenever gold is fixed by means of linseed oil, it will bear washing off, which burnished gold will not.
=To Gild Letters.=--When the sign is prepared as smooth as possible, go over it with a sizing made by white of an egg dissolved in about four times its weight of cold water; adding a small quantity of fuller’s earth, this to prevent the gold sticking to any part but letters. When dry, set out the letters and commence writing, laying on the size as thinly as possible, with a sable pencil. Let it stand until you can hardly feel a slight stickiness, then go to work with your gold leaf knife and cushion, and gild the letters. Take a leaf upon the point of your knife, after giving it a slight puff into the back part of your cushion, and spread it on the front part of it as straight as possible, give it another slight puff with your mouth to flatten it out. Now cut it to the proper size, cutting with the heel of your knife forwards. Now rub the tip of the knife lightly on your hair; take up the gold on the point, and place it neatly on the letters; when they are all covered, get some very fine cotton wool, and gently rub the gold until it is smooth and bright. Then wash the sign with clean water to take off the egg size.
=Sign Writing in Colors, Etc.=--On an oak ground ornamental letters, in ultra-marine blue, filled in with gold and silver leaf, blocked up and shaded with burnt sienna. _Another._--Gold letters on a white marble ground, blocked up and shaded with a transparent brown or burnt sienna. _On glass._--Gold letters shaded with burnt sienna. _Another._--Gold letters shaded with black on a _scarlet_ or _chocolate ground_. On a rich _blue ground_ shaded with black, look very well. _On a purple_ ground, pink letters shaded with white. Mix ultra-marine and vermilion for a ground color, white letters shaded with grey. _Vermilion ground_, chrome yellow stained and vermilion and lake, for the letters shaded with black.
A substitute for the above colors: Rose-pink and red lead; and for the letters stone yellow, white lead and Venetian red. Mix your colors for writing in boiled oil, and use for dryer gold size. Other good grounds for gold letters are, blues, vermilion, lake and Saxon. When your sign is ready for gilding, follow the directions under the head “_To Gild Letters on Wood_.”
=Gilder’s Size.=--Drying or boiled linseed oil, thickened with yellow ochre, or calcined red ochre, and carefully reduced to the utmost smoothness by grinding. It is thinned with oil of turpentine.
=Staining Wood a Dull Black.=--The work required to be stained should be colored with drop-black and size. When this is thoroughly set it should be papered off and colored again, and then be papered off again. The polish should also be stained with drop black and a little indigo. Next polish to a perfect surface, and let it set. After the wood has absorbed all the polish possible, polish again, and dull it with the finger dipped in fine emery; a fine metallic surface will thus be obtained.
=Staining Floors.=--The best and cheapest and only permanent stain for floors is permanganate of potash. Buy it by the ¹⁄₄ lb., and at a wholesale chemist’s; mix about ¹⁄₄ oz. in a quart of water. Apply freely and quickly to a dry floor with either cloth or brush, the latter if you care for staining your hand. Repeat the process for a very dark oak color; when dry, oil with burnt oil or beeswax and turpentine; you cannot wash this color out. Benson’s stain is only permanganate of potash. At first for a few moments the color is bright magenta, but this at once changes to a dark permanent brown. For fifty cents a whole house may be stained.
=Varnishing Wood.=--After smoothing wood with veneer scraper, brush on thick coat of shellac varnish; then use fine sandpaper, No. 0. Do this three times for close grained woods, such as black cherry, and four times for porous wood, such as chestnut. Have two dishes. Into one put finely ground pumice; into the other raw or boiled oil. Apply a mixture of these with a piece of hair-cloth or broad-cloth. Don’t rub too hard. Finish up with rotten stone, which will remove pumice and oil. Above is a good dead varnish. _Another._--Take encaustic wax, heat, and apply with a cork; rub in well, brush on thin coat shellac varnish, finish with pumice and oil.
=Solvent for Old Putty and Paint.=--Soft soap mixed with a solution of potash or caustic soda, or pearlash and slaked lime mixed with sufficient water to form a paste. Either of these laid on with an old brush or rag, and left for some hours, will render the putty or paint easily removable. _Another._--Slack three pounds of stone quicklime in water, then add one pound of pearlash, and make the whole about the consistence of paint. Apply it to both sides of the glass, and let it remain for twelve hours, when the putty will be so softened that the glass may be easily taken out of the frame. _Another._--Break the putty up in lumps the size of a hen’s egg, add a small portion of raw linseed oil, and water sufficient to cover the putty, boil this in an iron vessel for about ten minutes and stir it when hot. The oil will mix with the putty, then pour the water off and it will be like fresh made. For removing hard putty from a window sash take a piece of square iron, make the same red hot, and run it along the putty till it gets soft. The putty will peel off without injuring the wood work.
=Wash for Outside Work.=--For woodwork slake half a bushel of fresh lime, by pouring over it boiling water sufficient to cover it 4 or 5 inches deep, stirring it until slacked; add 2 lbs. of sulphate of zinc (white vitrol) dissolved in water. Add water enough to bring all to the consistency of thick whitewash; it may be colored by adding powdered ether, Indian red, umber, etc. If lampblack is added to colors, it should first be thoroughly dissolved in alcohol. The sulphate of zinc causes the wash to become hard in a few weeks.
=Another for Brick, Masonry, and Rough-cast.= Slake half a bushel of lime as before; then fill a barrel ²⁄₃ full of water, and add a bushel of hydraulic cement. Add 3 lbs. of sulphate of zinc previously dissolved in water. The whole should be of the thickness of paint. The wash is improved by stirring in a peck of white sand, just before using it. It can be colored as before described.
=French Polish.=--Coat with one or more coats of shellac and rub down smooth; make a rubber by rolling up a piece of flannel about 3 or 4 inches wide until it is about 1¹⁄₂ inches in diameter, and tie it round with cord. Lay the end of the rubber on the mouth of a thin necked bottle and apply the varnish to it, having previously shaken up the contents in the bottle; then enclose the end of the rubber with a piece of soft linen doubled, and moisten the face of the linen with a little raw linseed oil.
Pass the rubber with a quick, light and circular motion over the surface until the varnish becomes dry, or nearly so, and charge the rubber again with varnish until 3 coats have been laid on, when a little oil may be applied to the rubber and two more coats laid on. In the finishing coat wet the inside of the cloth with a little alcohol, and rub quickly and lightly over the whole surface. Lastly wet the linen cloth with a little oil and alcohol without varnish, and rub as before until dry.
The varnish is the usual preparation of shellac. See cabinet maker’s varnish.
=Wood Filling Composition.=--Boiled linseed oil, 1 qt.; turpentine, 3 qts.; corn starch, 5 lbs.; Japan, 1 qt.; calcined magnesia, 2 oz.; mix thoroughly. _Another._--Whitening, 6 oz.; Japan, ¹⁄₂ pt.; boiled linseed oil, ¹⁄₂ pt.; turpentine, ¹⁄₂ pt.; corn starch, 1 oz.; mix well together and apply to the wood. Add coloring if required. _Another._--Linseed oil, 1 qt.; spirits of turpentine, ¹⁄₂ pt.; lime, the size of a base-ball, broken fine. Let the mixture simmer on a stove, covered over, for two or three hours, then strain through a coarse cloth. It is to remain on 24 hours, then rub off with a woolen cloth and polish.
=German Filling.=--Fill the pores with raw tallow and plaster of Paris well amalgamated before a fire in cold weather. Darken, if required, with any coloring to suit. When well rubbed in give a coat of shellac and French polish or varnish.
=Polish for Walnut Wood.=--Mix with two parts of good alcoholic shellac varnish, one part of boiled linseed oil, shake well, and apply with a pad formed of woolen cloth. Rub the furniture briskly with a little of the mixture until the polish appears.
=Rules the Painter Should Observe.=--Never eat or sleep without washing the hands and face and rinsing the mouth. Keep the buckets, brushes, etc., clean, so that they may be handled without smearing the hands. Never sleep in a paint shop nor in a newly painted room. Never allow paint to accumulate on the clothing or finger nails. Never wash the hands in turpentine, as it relaxes the muscles and injures the joints; any animal oil or even linseed oil is better. Never drink water that has stood any length of time in a paint shop or newly painted room. Never use spirituous liquors as it unites with the mineral salts and tends to harden them and causes inflammation of the parts where they concrete. Milk, sweet oil and the like should be used freely, as they tend to soften the accumulated poisons and carry them off. Vinegar and acid fruits used constantly, unite.
PAPER-HANGING.
The art of putting on, or “Hanging” paper is very simple, and is easily learned; but to make a tasteful choice of paper for various situations, is not so easy, hence the following remarks, which may be of service to the workman or others on whom the selection of paper may devolve.
Walls to a room should be regarded only in the light of a frame-work to what the room contains, and should be decorated so as to bring into prominence and not eclipse the other parts of the chamber. Nothing destroys the effect of a room so much as a handsome but staring wall paper, or a wall so profusely ornamented as to strike upon the eye to the exclusion of the rest of the decorations, thus bringing forward what should be the background into the most conspicuous place. A modern drawing room is always difficult to decorate artistically, because of the taste of its builders for heavy cornices, prominent mantelpieces, and rooms too lofty for their size; and as all these misnamed “embellishments” are too costly to remove by tenants, the only plan to pursue is to destroy their effect by exercising both taste and ingenuity. First, with regard to the ceiling, the ornamental plaster boss in its center should be removed, and the ceiling tinted a color that harmonizes with the wall paper, as no harmonies can be hoped for when what produces them is surmounted with the glaring white of an ordinary ceiling. The tint used must be one that softens into the wall paper, not one that contrasts; thus, if the tone of the room is that of a soft grey blue, the ceiling should be a clear flesh pink; or should a grey gre picked out with black be the chosen color, then it should be colored a subdued lemon.
Some people cover their ceilings with a whole colored paper, and border it with a stencilled pattern representing the thin garlands so familiar upon Queen Anne decorations, but this is a more troublesome plan than the simple coloring, which answers all the purpose. The walls, if they are lofty, require a high dado. These high dados give a look of comfort and “home” that is absent from the modern high pitched room papered with one uniform pattern. The dado is divided 3 feet to 4 feet from the ceiling, and the coloring of the lower portion must always be heavier than that used on the upper or a top heavy look will be given to the room. When many pictures are to be hung up the lower part of the dado should be of a whole color, either a whole colored paper or a painted wall, as pictures are only shown off upon such a background. Where a whole tint is used for the lower part of the dado, the upper portion should be decorated with a frieze paper of a good bold pattern, but of subdued coloring and of tint that harmonizes with the lower. Thus, the color used about the frieze should be the same as that on the lower part, but of a lighter shade, intermixed with some other colors that form a harmonious link between the two shades. Contrasts must be carefully avoided, but pale pinks, blue and ambers can be blended together above a subdued grey blue ground. The two portions of the dado should be joined together with a light wooden (black or brown) railing, or with a line of paint.
The dado decoration can be altered by placing the pattern paper upon the lower part and leaving the upper plain-colored with or without a stencilled pattern upon it. This will suit a room where not many pictures are required, or that is already rather dark. Some part of the wall should always be in plain color, as the eye requires rest; and no pattern, however subdued in hue, can give the relief to the mind that a bit of plain coloring affords, and this scarcity of ornament in one part of a room is amply repaid by the effect it gives to such parts as are bright and should be bright. The true theory of effect is to use but one or two bright colors in a room, and to surround them by soft and subdued tints that throw up and do not destroy their brilliancy; a number of bright colors placed together destroy each other, and leave no impression upon the mind but glare and vulgarity. Having settled upon your paper and ceiling, have the woodwork and cornice of the room painted either a shade lighter or darker than the walls, and shroud up the mantelpiece with curtains, etc., of satin sheeting embroidered with crewels, and instead of the usual looking glass over the fire-place, have a mirror surrounded with brackets holding china; or have a black wooden mantelpiece made with squares of looking glass set in. The back-ground of your room being thus completed in a manner really to be a back-ground, your furniture will look twice as well as if it were stared out of countenance by the walls, and one need hardly add that all your friends will delight in a room that throws up and brings out their dresses and faces, instead of killing them by its glaring tints.