CHAPTER II.
BUYING AND SELECTING BRUSHES--CARE OF THEM--SOFTENING HARD BRUSHES--BRUSH KEEPERS--PRESERVING LIQUIDS--BRUSHES USED IN VEHICLE PAINTING, ETC.
One conspicuously famous brush maker has declared the art of brush making to be "an art preservative." The carriage and wagon painter is deeply concerned in the achievements of that art, because every distinct advancement made therein makes possible an equally distinct advancement in the art of painting. To a greater extent, perhaps, than any other class of painters, the carriage and wagon painter should be interested in making up his brush equipment of tools of the best quality. The brush made of reliable stock, having the proper "hang" and point, and which balances like a "thoroughbred," is an economical tool to buy, regardless of the price. The vehicle painter requires a brush made scientifically, by the outlay of honest workmanship, and of material that is wholly above suspicion. A brush that has simply the price to recommend it is usually an unreliable article and worketh evil, like a thief in the night, unexpectedly. In making choice of a brush for putting on priming, lead, and roughstuff, and for such other features of general use as require a round or oval bristle brush, the painter may properly look at the filling of the tool. Deception, if practiced at all, is usually placed where it shows the least. The first-class brush is distinctively the brush that shows good quality--uniform quality--from center to outside. Other things being equal, the brush that is made up uniformly as to its bristle equipment will develop a good point, and all carriage painters are alive to the importance of this virtue in both paint and varnish brushes.
Much of the usefulness of a brush depends upon the manner of caring for it when it comes into the paint shop. The bristle brushes used for priming, lead, and roughstuff require bridling until worn down somewhat. There are many patent brush bridles now procurable at a nominal cost which tend to give a brush much better shape than the shop-made bridle. If these are not at hand, the painter can take "tufting cord" (our friends, the carriage trimmers, keep it) and wind the brush securely but not too tightly; or he can take a piece of light weight rubber cloth and, extending the piece well down on the handle, tie it at the proper distance around the bristles. The rubber side of the piece should be fastened next the bristles. Then, from where it is tied around the bristles, fold the piece back onto the handle and tie securely. Trim off, and a bridle is furnished that is perfectly water- and paint-proof, the cloth side of the rubber being folded inside. For a shop-made bridle the writer finds this a serviceable one. After bridling, drop a little oil paint into the heel of the brush and set it away in a dustproof compartment for a few days. Then use the brush for a time in oil paint, suspending the brush when not in use in raw linseed oil. In the course of two or three days the brush may be put into other paint if desired and suspended in water. Suspend the brush just up to the butts of the bristles, or so they are just covered, and invariably keep the water up to that point. Under no circumstances permit a brush to rest upon its point when not in use. It destroys the form of the tool and lessens its spring and elasticity. The bristle paint brushes require a clean storage quite to the extent that the color or varnish brushes do. Therefore, the receptacle in which they are kept should be fitted with a cover and should be tight enough to keep out all forms of dirt. A common tobacco pail procured of the local grocery, painted inside and out, fitted with a cover, and having nails driven at certain distances apart all around it, one-third of the way down from the top, on which the brushes may be suspended, makes a cheap and excellent keeper for the ordinary paint brushes.
Camel's hair color brushes may well have a little paint, one-half oil and one-half turpentine, dropped into the heels of them. These brushes, used in japan ground colors, need to be kept suspended in water. Change the water frequently and make sure that it is clean. A brush keeper such as is recommended for varnish brushes is one of the best possible keepers for color brushes. It insures cleanliness. And vehicle painting without cleanliness is like unto a landscape painting with the beauties of nature left out. The brushes kept in water do better in rain water than in hard water. During the cold months, especially in shops where freezing is liable to occur, it is advisable to add a little glycerine to the water. The glycerine delays the freezing point and does not injure the brushes. Never soak a brush in water before using it in paint. Animal fat circulates in the capillary tubes of all bristles and hair, and if water is soaked into these arteries, the spring and elasticity of the brush is not only destroyed, but it speedily becomes a very much water-logged tool. To swell up a brush which for some cause has become dried out and shrunken, part the bristles so that the end of the handle is exposed, and pour in a small quantity of water, say three or four teaspoonfuls. Then stand it away, bristles up, handle down, for two or three hours and the brush will have returned to its normal condition. If a brush handle gets smeared with paint or varnish, a wire scrub brush dipped in a solution of sal soda will clean off the sticky substance in short order. To test the bristles in a brush, remove some of them and submit them to a smart flame. Bristles, the real animal product, will curl and writhe and emit a peculiar odor. No known adulterant burns this way.
A brush that has been allowed through accident or neglect to get "soggy" may be limbered up nicely by soaking in heated turpentine. Hardened brushes may often be softened into workable condition again by soaking the bristles in hot linseed oil. A simple soaking in turps or benzine will sometimes effect the needed softening up. Brushes, however, that have dried up, saturated with quick drying colors or paint, can at best never be restored to a first-class working condition. The best form of economy, therefore, is to throw such brushes away. Remedies in impressive array have been marshalled wherewith to restore varnish brushes that have become lousy, but the vehicle finisher recognizes no reliable or economical remedy for the purpose named. A dirty varnish brush can be cleaned by washing in oil first, then in turps, and lastly worked in for putting on first rubbing coats, and thus gradually brought back to its original cleanliness. But the varnish brush once lousy, look you! _always_ lousy. Better
"To the fire I now consign thee, Peace unto thine ashes be."
When a varnish brush is accidentally dropped on the floor while being used, pick it up carefully and, holding it at an acute angle, bristles down, pour a small quantity of turpentine over it, thus flooding the accumulated dirt completely off.
There is a considerable diversity of opinion as to the best preserving liquid in which to keep the varnish brushes. Local needs and requirements are probably the safest guides in the matter of choosing preserving liquids for varnish brushes. When the brushes are used daily, as they are in big shops, it is a very good way to keep them in raw linseed oil. Then, every morning before beginning work, the brushes may be rinsed out in turpentine, wiped out clearly over the edge of the cup, and an elastic brush full of life is assured.
Brushes used daily upon clean surfaces are, or should be, clean, and rinsing in turpentine can do no harm to a clean brush. But in the case of brushes used every two or three days or occasionally, different treatment is needed. Such brushes are liable to be used upon surfaces and amid surroundings less cleanly than those which obtain in the fine factory or custom shop, and the rinsing in turps, consequent upon preserving them in oil, would merely serve to loosen and set in motion the dirt and flocculent matter gradually collected and forced up into the body of the tools. For this reason it were better to keep them in finishing varnish or, preferably, brush keeping varnish, i. e., varnish minus its driers. Whatever the preservative, the brushes require the most watchful attention. If kept in finishing varnish, the liquid should be changed frequently. So delicate a tool, of which so much is expected, makes imperative the observance of gentle, cleanly treatment. Varnish brushes ought never to be left lying around for any considerable length of time when not in use. Dust is never idle, but always moving and, like the dew of the evening, it falleth upon the just and the unjust, varnish brushes included. Have a stiff, partly-worn brush to clean the handles of varnish brushes. Wiping them with cloth distributes lint.
In Fig. 1 is shown a double compartment brush keeper. It can be made of tin or zinc and is not expensive. Attach lock and key to it, and the brushes conditioned to a peerless trim are secure. Make the keeper 8 in. long, 5 in. wide, 9 in. deep; outfit with spring fasteners, run wires through 3 in. from top, and 3/4 in. from bottom of the can locate a rack made of small wires criss-crossed on a light wire frame. The dirt which collects in the keeper goes to the bottom beneath the gauze rack, and should a brush fall into the preserving liquid it is held aloof from the dirt accumulations. These are regulation brush keepers, clean, durable, and cost in the neighborhood of $1. Fig. 2 represents the famous thirty-cent brush keeper, several times illustrated but still deserving a place here. It is claimed to be made upon scientific principles, namely, the break between the body of the keeper and its lid or cover occurs at the bottom and below the point of brush suspension, instead, as in the ordinary keeper, at the top and above the point of suspension. It can be made of any size to meet individual needs. Such a can affords a splendid keeper for camel's-hair color brushes and for color-and-varnish brushes. Fig. 3 displays what has been somewhat widely heralded as the western idea of a brush keeper, although the gentleman who first published a cut of the keeper and who, I believe, was the inventor of it, has seldom, if ever, been given credit for his ingenuity. My veteran brother of the brush, Mr. V. B. Grinnell, is deserving of the thanks of the trade for his invention. It consists of an ordinary glass fruit can (a metal top with rubber attachment is best), in which is located a tin cup, having a heavy wire soldered to it and projecting up to near the top of the can. This allows the cup to be easily removed from the top of the can. A second wire is soldered onto the first one so that it projects out horizontally over the cup, allowing for the suspension of the brushes in the liquid contained in the cup. The illustration shows how the keeper is made completely. Two or three brushes may be kept in each can, and they may be kept air-tight, too, a matter of moment to the vehicle painter.
The vehicle painter's brush equipment should consist of a good assortment of round or oval bristle brushes for putting on priming, lead, and roughstuff. For the best grade of carriage painting, the chiseled brush is advised for the priming and lead coats. In size they should run about 4.0. For working upon large surfaces, however, larger brushes will be needed, hence any exact size cannot be advised to meet all cases. Spoke brushes, dusters in plenty, flat chiseled bristle paint brushes, extra thick camel's-hair color brushes, varying in size from 1 in. to 3 in., camel's-hair flowing brushes, 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 in. in size, for applying color-and-varnish of some kinds, chiseled badger hair brushes, double thick, 1 in. to 2 in. for varnishing gears, oval chiseled sash tools for cleaning up surfaces and painting when needed certain parts of a vehicle, chiseled fitch tools for cleaning up panels, and lastly not less than four sets of varnish brushes for varnishing vehicle body surfaces, along with some oval or round chiseled varnish brushes required especially in wagon painting.
The painter needs a set of at least three brushes, 1 in., 1-1/2 in., and 2-1/2 in. in size, for varnishing the inside surfaces of bodies, these to be used for no other purpose. Then, properly, he should have a set of brushes for putting on first rubbing varnish coats, consisting of a 1-inch chiseled badger hair brush, and a 2-1/2 in. and one 3-in. bristle brush. Then another set of the same number for the remaining rubbing coats.
The finishing kit of brushes may properly consist of five chiseled half elastic flowing brushes, as follows: One 1-in., one 1-1/2-inch, one 2-in., one 2-1/2-in., one 3-in. Some finishers prefer a 1-in. badger hair brush for flowing the edges of the panels, but the set of flowing brushes herewith illustrated answers every purpose fully and completely. The art of fine brush making has so far advanced within recent years that it is now possible to get varnish brushes which require but very little working in varnish to prepare them for flowing on the finishing coats.
To clean a new varnish brush preparatory to using it as a finishing brush, first draw the stock of the tool through the fingers, continuing this operation until the loose dirt is quite fully worked out. Then repeatedly submerge it in clean linseed oil and wipe out over the edge of a cup, after which use it for a week or two in rubbing varnish. The brush may then safely be used for applying finishing coats of varnish.
All brushes not specially mentioned in the foregoing as round or oval brushes are assumed to be flat, this style of brush being the one chiefly employed in vehicle painting.
In the matter of camel's-hair, badger hair, and flowing varnish brushes, the painter desires said brushes to be tough, durable fibre, having soft ends, elastic, and which wear soft until worn out.
In selecting the brush equipment, it is a most happy mental exercise to remember that the highest type of brush, if not mightier than the sword, at least hath its victories.
The numerous accompanying excellent illustrations of brushes specially adapted to the needs of the carriage and wagon painter are the result of valuable and courteously extended assistance tendered by that celebrated brush making firm, John L. Whiting and Son Co., Boston, Mass.