CHAPTER XIII.
VEHICLE REPAINTING: HOW THE VARIOUS CLASSES OF WORK ARE DONE--MATCHING COLORS--BURNING OFF PAINT--MATERIALS USED IN PAINTING--TREATMENT OF TOPS AND DASHES--WASHING FINISHED WORK--SCHEDULE OF PRICES, ETC.
The re-varnishing, re-painting, etc., of vehicles constitutes an important source of revenue for the carriage and wagon painter. Many first-class paint shops connected with high grade carriage manufacturing establishments do a heavy business in re-painting vehicles. The writer has in mind a firm of carriage builders located not far from the office of THE WESTERN PAINTER, which employs a force of from sixty to eighty painters. In addition to painting and finishing the manufactured output of the establishment, consisting, it may be said, of anything in the carriage line from a tiny road buggy to a dashing four-in-hand coach, the force is yearly credited with from $30,000 to $40,000 worth of re-painting, etc. From this it will be assumed that vehicle repainting, rightly directed, affords substantial profits. Were it otherwise the firm in question would not make it a part of their business.
TOUCH-UP-AND-VARNISH.
The touch-up-and-varnish job is supposed to reach the paint shop showing but few evidences of grim-visaged service. The fact that it doesn't uniformly do so furnishes the painter with about as much difficulty in satisfactorily handling this class of work as he encounters in doing those classes which have a more troublesome look to them.
The best profits to be gleaned from this class of work are realized when the room space will admit of locating the job in a position where it can be handily worked at without much unhanging, and where plenty of light may be secured. A simple removal of the shafts, wheels, and, if necessary, top, together with such interior furnishings as carpet, cushion storm apron, etc., will, in a majority of cases, suffice to clear the way for active work upon the job, provided sufficient room space is at command. The unhanging of some of these "touch ups" is sometimes an expensive item, especially when rusty bolts are to be taken out and replaced. Therefore, the least possible unhanging should be practiced. Once the necessary parts are removed, proceed to clean off the grease smears, wiping axle arms bright, and looking well to the fifth wheel. Benzine is a good, quick liquid agent for loosening grease, etc. If top is left upon the job (and it should be in most cases, when possible), dust out the lining carefully, clean outside well, then clean out the body interior, after which give the outside body surface a light pumice flour and water rub as the most effective means of ridding it of possible greasy patches, dirt nibs, etc. A close, hard rubbing should be avoided, as upon a majority of surfaces it is prone to disclose checks and fissures, minute or otherwise, which a single coat of varnish will only serve to bring out more clearly, rather than to conceal. The body rubbed and washed thoroughly, the running parts are given a careful rinsing and drying off with the chamois skin.
TOUCHING UP.
Matching colors preparatory to touching up is probably the most difficult process related to this class of work. To match colors successfully one must have a correct eye for colors. To distinguish between closely related tints, shades, hues, and tones, in an accurate and conclusive way, brings into play talents, or a gift--call it what you please--not vouchsafed to the average mortal. This is one important feature of the trade that practice does not make perfect. The colorist does not acquire his skill by practice merely.
If the fading of colors tended in one general way and to something like a uniform degree, the successful matching of colors might be controlled in due time by all painters interested in experimental work. Chemistry and other scientific aids to color-making have wrought mysterious and, to the practical man, undemonstrable factors in carriage colors. As a result, colors fade in all the varying degrees imaginable, and are subject to so many influences that their control, as a rule, is quite beyond the skill and practical knowledge of the painter.
Many of the colors, notably the radiant reds lately so fashionable, are naturally so fugitive that unless extraordinary care is exercised in preparing the groundwork, they quickly fade; and, their original identity once lost, it is a feat beyond the ability of the most masterful colorist or color matcher to restore. To a less extent, perhaps, other colors operate in the same way.
The question, therefore, presents itself:--Is not the best way to match colors to prevent their fading, so far as prevention can be made to apply? One's doctor will affirm that a mound of prevention is worth a mountain of cure.
It is not expected to make this prevention so sweeping and effectual as to merit the title of a cure-all. But preventive measures, diligently practiced, will lessen the fading evil, and thus reduce the work of matching colors to the minimum. The mixing of colors, as already alluded to in these chapters, should, so far as it is within the power of enlightened paint shop knowledge, be made an exact process. Carelessness and guess work are not to be tolerated. Exact measurements of all the ingredients which go into a batch of color or paint are necessary. Then a firm insistence upon hardy, durable grounds, regardless of the hurrying shouts of the populace, is in order. A fugitive red, or any other fugitive color, as a matter of fact, is given a support that will add to its permanency, by adjusting the ground color with such a strong binder of varnish that the color has a "live look" to it--an approach to a faint egg-shell gloss, let us say. The retention of the final color's original purity and strength is in this way made more permanent.
In color matching, however, which, despite our best efforts, must continue to be a part of paint shop practice, it is best to take over to the mixing bench a certain part of the work to be touched up, and, touching a few inches of space with varnish so that it can be seen what the spots and what the color as a whole will look like under a fresh coat of varnish, proceed to gauge the matching color to it. It is a principle adhered to by many skilled workmen in the matching of colors that the touch-up color should contain sufficient varnish to cause it to dry with a stout gloss. A color furnished with a strong varnish gloss will reflect more light than it will absorb, and _vice versa_. And the color which in process of drying absorbs more light than it reflects, will, as a rule, when varnished over, be a different color (or a different shade, hue, or tint of that color) than it looked to be in the mixing pot or on the surface after it had simply dried free from "tack." An absorption of light has effected a chemical or other change in it, and what was judged as a close match proves a wide departure from it. Even with the counteracting agency of varnish, a color is pretty sure to dry out lighter than it appears in the mixing cup, so that close calculation and the exercise of the colorist's art in a fine way is needed to get the desired match.
The touch-up color having been satisfactorily prepared and tested, the felloes and all places on the job worn bare to the wood being, in the meantime, touched with lead and oil, the work of touching first the body and then the running parts is carried along.
Then the dressing of the top, side curtains, and, if need be, the dash, ensues. The interior of the body is next varnished, then the outside surface is flowed, and, finally, the running parts.
Coming next to the touch-up-and-varnish job, and by many painters regarded as belonging to the same class, is the job that gets one coat of color, striping, and one coat of varnish. This job offers an opportunity for deception of which the paint shop graduates in the school of intellectual villainy are quick to take advantage. They solemnly assure the prospective customer that they will _paint_ his vehicle for, say, $6, the price asked ordinarily for the color and one coat varnish job. The stranger, caught by the price and the alluring prospect of getting the job _painted_, responds to the "hold up" until the dishonesty of the thing is revealed, as it is sure to be, by the exacting needs of service. The color, stripe, and varnish job calls for no little dexterity in many cases, in placing the color directly over a hard, flinty surface of paint and varnish and making it stay for a reasonable term of service. The surface once cleaned, as per directions in the preceding case, the body is given a light rub with water and pumice stone flour, and the gear is treated to a smart smoothing off with fine sandpaper. These fine, and, to the naked eye, almost invisible scratches and furrows, suffice to afford a foothold, a gripping place, for the color. These hard, adamantine surfaces over which quick colors are often necessarily placed may be classed as prolific sources of color flaking and chipping. In addition to the sandpapering as a means of promoting durability, the use of a strong binder of varnish in the color is advised. The one coat color, stripe, and varnish job is quickly done and should afford a good profit.
The color, color-and-varnish, stripe, and finish job simply means a coat of color-and-varnish applied over the color after it has been placed as just described. Then a "mossing" or rubbing with hair to the extent of knocking of the gloss of the color-and-varnish, striping, and finishing, the body surface, of course, to get a rather light rub with water and pumice stone, both before applying the color and after applying the color-and-varnish. Should the body surface show signs of being fissured and cracked somewhat, it were better to forego the rubbing with pumice stone and water, substituting therefor a dressing down with No. 1/2 sandpaper. This provides against moisture getting into the checks and causing trouble.
Following in the wake of the above class of work come the jobs that are afflicted with all sorts and conditions of surface ailments; jobs that ought properly to be burned off if the owners could be convinced of the economy of the process. One way of treating a body surface threaded with fissures consists of taking a two-inch scraper, such as car painters use, made of a file cranked over at both ends so as to give two cutting blades, and scraping the varnish completely off down to the undercoatings of color and paint. Follow the scraping with a quick rubbing with lump pumice stone or a fine grade of brick and water, avoiding even a close approach to the wood. In most cases the cracks will, by this process, be pretty cleanly removed; when they are not entirely slicked off the remaining vestiges are, as a rule, so faintly traced as to give no further trouble when bridged over by the coats of lead, color, and varnish. The rubbing once completed, the surface is given time to dry out thoroughly; then sanding with No. 0 ensues, this, in turn, giving way to a coat of facing lead mixed to dry without gloss, the lead being colored to a decided slate shade with lampblack. Apply with a camel's-hair brush. Sandpaper this coat with No. 1/2 paper; then apply color, and finish out as previously advised in these chapters. If a different plan of filling up is preferred, cut down the surface with No. 2 sandpaper, and first apply a lead coat mixed of 1/3 raw linseed oil to 2/3 turpentine. In 48 hours give a coat of roughstuff made of keg lead and filler, equal parts by weight, thinned to a stiff paste with rubbing varnish and japan, half and half, and then reduced to a free brushing consistency with turpentine. First puttying should be done on the lead coat, and the second one on the first filler coat. A couple more of roughstuff coats will suffice to give the needed body of rubbing pigment. Thus the old flinty foundation is furnished with the requisite elasticity through the medium of the oil lead coat. The roughstuff foundation is made to dry hard and firm, like unto the condition of the old foundation itself, and in this way an affinity between the old and the new is established.
Another foundation is quickly builded by taking any good roughstuff filler and reducing it to a spreading consistency with shellac, the first coat, however, being made a bit thinner in body than the succeeding coats, so that it will more readily penetrate the cracks. Three coats of this preparation usually suffices to yield the necessary foundation free from fissures or other blemishes. The roughstuff filler and shellac make a compound remarkably quick setting; hence, it must be worked very quickly if smoothness of application would be achieved.
Again, it is the practice in some quarters to sandpaper the old surface down as close as possible, giving a stout coat of lead mixed with 1/4 oil to 3/4 turpentine, and when this coat has dried for a couple of days, putty all the deep cavities, following, the day after, with a glazing of putty over the surface, the glazing being done with a broad putty knife, and the putty being worked out to a uniform film and as smooth as possible.
In respect to the running parts, all flaky, shelly patches of surface should be scraped. All torn and shredded places require smoothing down nicely with scraper and sandpaper. The old remaining paint should be perfectly solid and secure. The parts cleaned and scoured to the bare wood had best be given a lead coat containing, as one of its liquid ingredients, at least 1/3 linseed oil. The second coat, applied, like the first, with a camel's-hair brush, may contain merely a binder of oil, avoidance of gloss being a strictly observed rule. Then putty deep holes and indentations, following this with draw puttying all parts in need of such treatment. Upon this lead coat, or a second one if the owner is not averse to paying for it, the finish is reached in the usual way, as advised in a former chapter. In painting over these cracked, flaky, and insecure foundations, the first principle to be observed is to get the shaky, shelly material completely removed, leaving nothing but the firm and securely fastened pigment. The second one is to secure as thorough an amalgamation of the old and new materials as practical paint-shop knowledge and skill will insure.
BURNING OFF PAINT.
However good the crack-filling formulas may be, they are at best only expedients of temporary value. Burning off the paint, thus getting a sure foundation from the wood itself, is effective and free from those injurious effects which are so often characteristic of paint removing preparations, etc. As in the past affirmed by the writer, "with the old more or less shaky foundation, concerning the exact nature of which no man knoweth, fairly and cleanly removed, the painter is enabled to work from the foundation coat to the finish with the bright light of knowledge concerning the preparation and application of the materials used, drying, action, etc., flashing through his mind." This is why burning off is so much more satisfactory, usually, to the painter. In the lingo of the street, he knows "where he is at," and the measure of security afforded him.
To do first-class paint burning--and the other kind is not to be considered in these chapters--the workman must be provided with a strictly reliable and good-working lamp, burning gasoline or naphtha. To be maintained in a condition to render satisfactory results, the flues and mechanism require thorough cleaning and inspection before the lamp is laid away after use. No unused fluid should be allowed to remain in the reservoir of the lamp when it is not in use, as the vapor arising therefrom will very shortly deposit a film of sticky substance on the surface of the flues that will prevent a smooth and even flame when the lamp is again put into use. And eventually, if the flues are permitted to become more or less choked up in this way, the lamp will refuse to work at all. Explosions and accidents of many kinds are possible with the lamp that is allowed to clog and gum up. The burning lamp should be kept in a clean place, and show a clean, bright surface, both interior and exterior. A couple of putty knives, one narrow and one broad blade, a good, serviceable glove or mitten provided with a wrist and half-arm sleeve, and a leather apron reaching well up to the workman's chest, belong to the burner's kit, and should be kept in close company with the lamp.
The operation of burning consists in simply directing the flame upon the surface long enough to soften up the pigment and permit of its easy removal with the knife. In a way, "burning off" is a misnomer. To literally burn the paint off, as the apprentice might possibly construe the term if not otherwise enlightened, would result in charring the wood to a harmful extent. Begin burning at a part of the surface which will allow the softened paint to be thrown off over a portion of the surface still coated with paint. As the knife is usually handled with the right hand it is best to begin burning on the left side of the panel. Thus the softened paint is thrown to the right and across the unburned portion of the surface. It is a wise rule to remember, in connection with this work, that a job burned right is in a fair way to be painted right. If through an accident or otherwise the surface should get scorched in places, a complete scraping out of the burned wood fibres will be necessary. Then with equal parts of raw linseed oil and turpentine touch just the charred patches. After a solid block sandpapering, the surface may be taken in hand and conducted to a finish in the usual way.
TABLE OF MATERIALS USED IN PAINTING VEHICLES.
For a landau:--
BODY.
Priming 2 quarts Lead 1-1/2 " Putty 3/4 to 1-1/2 lbs. Sandpaper 10 sheets Roughstuff (four coats) 1 gallon Guide coat 3/4 quart Color (per coat) 1 pint Color-and-varnish (2 coats) 1-1/2 quarts Clear rubbing (1 coat) 1-1/2 pints Coat of finishing 1-3/4 "
RUNNING PARTS.
Priming 1-1/8 quarts Rub lead 1-1/4 " Lead coat 1 " Putty 1/2 lb. Sandpaper 12 sheets Color 1 pint Color-and-varnish (per coat) 1-1/2 pints Clear rubbing 1-1/2 " Coat finishing 1 quart
In the case of a Berlin coach, perhaps the quantity of each item of material should be increased over the above to the extent of 1/4 for the body surface. Running parts require the same quantity. The body of a six-passenger rockaway will need, approximately, 1/8 less material than the body of the landau or coach. The body of the coupe-rockaway 1/4 less. Running parts consume about the same quantity as the heavier vehicles here named.
The quantity of varnish named for the above vehicles provides for toe-boards, checks, steps, bottoms, etc.
For buggies of the various styles:
BODY.
Priming 5/8 pint Lead 1/2 " Putty 1/4 lb. Sandpaper 6 sheets Roughstuff (4 coats) 1 quart Color (2 coats) 1 pint Lampblack (for bottoms) 1/2 " Color-and-varnish 5/8 " Clear rubbing (2 coats) 1 " Finishing varnish 2/3 " Varnish in color and filler 1 "
RUNNING PARTS.
Priming 1 pint Lead (2 coats) 1-3/4 " Putty 3/8 lb. Sandpaper 12 sheets Color 1 pint Color-and-varnish 1-1/4 " Clear rubbing 1-1/4 " Coat of finishing 1-1/2 "
Such light pleasure vehicles as surreys, cabriolets, etc., require an increase in the quantity of each item of material over that accorded to the buggies and phaetons of about one-half.
The above tables may be of benefit to some of my readers who desire a practical basis upon which to estimate the cost of the material to be used upon a certain vehicle. Labor is said by competent authorities to represent 75 per cent of the cost of painting a vehicle. With the cost of material at hand--a computation made comparatively easy by the aid of the tables here set forth--and with 75 per cent of the whole cost credited to the labor item, a very close estimate upon general vehicle painting can be made.
Guess work in gauging the price of a job of vehicle painting paves the way to an unprofitable business venture; more surely in these days of uproarious competition than in times past. Careful estimates, which include cost of labor, material, shop rent, wear and tear of tools, and such other incidental features of business which may properly be taken note of in an estimate, have come to be imperative necessities in carriage and wagon painting. Verily, it is true that it is not all of painting to paint--_estimating_ should be included therein.
TOPS AND DASHES.
The proper care and treatment of carriage tops and dashes forms one of the significant features of the re-painting business. About every class of citizens who have to do with carriages--the trimmer, harness-maker, livery man, blacksmith, hack-driver, and jockey--regularly come forward bubbling over with advice and formulas for the preservation of tops; but usually the paint shop is resorted to as the Court of Appeal. The aim of the painter should be to impart to the top and dash a finish which will correspond to that given the other parts of the vehicle, at the same time furnishing the leather or rubber a preservative agent that will provide reasonable durability.
In every jobbing paint shop a space should be set apart for the safe and clean storage of tops and dashes; also cushions, carpets, and other interior furnishings. In the space selected for the purpose a rack made to conform to the size of the space may be erected. Build it to consist of two tiers, with a half-story tier above for the holding of cushions, carpets, etc. If the space is large enough, make the rack, say, 12 feet long, 10 feet high, and 4 feet wide. The two first tiers will hold six buggy tops. The rack is made of 1-inch and 2-inch stuff, hemlock, say, and need not cost to exceed $1.50. Tops that are regularly calashed will require only half space. Under no circumstances should a top be calashed and stored away in the shop unless it has been used and subject to such treatment. The top (and the dash also, when removed), upon removal should be cleaned thoroughly before being set away. If the top joints need a coating of lead it should be given them prior to placing them in the rack or permanent storage place. It is bad policy to defer painting and finishing such parts until it is nearly time to hang off the other parts of the vehicle. A uniform quality of finish cannot in this way be secured. The irons on tops, if chipped, rusted, etc., require lead, often a facing with putty, color, color-and-varnish, a light rub with pumice stone flour and water, and finishing with a good hard drying varnish. A few days before the vehicle is finished the top belonging to it may be taken in hand, the lining carefully dusted out, and the leather or rubber sponged off and dried over with a chamois skin. The further treatment may depend upon the material of which the top is composed. A great many vehicle owners, livery men in particular, prefer to have leather tops--except the badly worn ones--go without a dressing of any kind, a simple washing with castile soap and soft water being thought to amply suffice. Hand-buffed leather tops in good condition, in the writer's estimation, require no dressing; the machine-buffed ones, however, are benefited by a thin, evenly-applied coat of some strictly reliable enamel top dressing. And it is pertinent here to say that even the best of dressings, those which long usage has sanctioned as of established value, are of such a nature that they are beneficial only when applied sparingly. A dressing, to be genuinely useful to the carriage painter, should preserve the enamel of a top, strengthen the leather or rubber, and enable it to retain its natural flexibility for the longest possible period.
If, then, the top be rubber or machine-buffed leather, apply dressing, not forgetting the side curtains. If a leather top and the owner wishes it to be given some preparation other than the regulation enamel top dressing of commerce, the following formulas may be used, the two first being particularly beneficial to the leather.
_Formula No. 1._--Neatsfoot oil, 1 pint, beef suet, 1/8 lb. Melt the oil and suet together. Then add a tablespoonful of melted beeswax, mixing the ingredients carefully, and confining in an air-tight vessel. The beeswax has a cooling property greatly to be desired in a leather preservative.
_Formula No. 2._--Darken neatsfoot oil with a drop black. Apply sparingly and rub out well with soft rags. This formula does not give the brilliancy of finish that an enamel dressing does, but it gives to the leather a softness and pliability not obtained otherwise.
_Formula No. 3._--Adapted for either rubber or leather. Of finishing varnish, 1 quart; beeswax, 1 oz; drop black, sufficient to color mixture properly. Thin to a brushing consistency with the turpentine. The worth and reliability of No. 3 is vouched for by a jobbing shop painter of twenty-five years' experience.
_Formula No. 4._--This provides for the use of boiled linseed oil stained with drop black thinned with turpentine. Apply this preparation with a brush, rubbing it out well and uniformly. Set aside for 30 minutes; then with clean soft rags, rub the mixture off, polishing until a clean cloth shows no stain when rubbed over the leather. Places which show cracks and hard service will need a second coating with the mixture. The leather is not thickened with this mixture, has no unusual attraction for dust and dirt, and will remain soft and flexible.
Fine grained leather dashes, fenders, etc., which do not look worn or rusty, appearing only soiled and somewhat smeary, may be gone over with a cloth saturated lightly with kerosene oil, and then polished with soft woolen rags.
The commoner grades may be given patent enamel dressing, or, if preferred, a thin coat of drop black rubbed off immediately with soft rags and then flowed with a first-class finishing varnish. If much worn, they may be greatly freshened up and renewed if treated with some of the formulas given herewith.
MARKING AND METHODS OF IDENTIFYING VEHICLES AND THEIR PARTS.
The jobbing paint shop requires and should be given a system of marking and tabulating all work taken in, so that when the finish is reached and hanging off occurs, valuable time need not be wasted in searching for mislaid and unidentified parts, such as cushions, carpets, storm aprons, and the like. Unless each part is carefully marked with a properly filled out tag attached to said part, and an itemized entry made in the receiving book fitted with printed forms, a filled out form being given the vehicle owner and a duplicate copy retained by the painter, "confusion worse confounded" may be expected to occasionally occur. The following is a blank form which the writer several years ago published and, having seen it in use in the painting business, he can cheerfully endorse its merits as a practical working form:
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RECEIVED FROM_________________________________________________
BY____________________________________________________________
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DAY MONTH DATE
RECEIVED ON___________________________________________________
TO BE FINISHED ON_____________________________________________
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ARTICLES LEFT WITH____________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
REMARKS_______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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WASHING FINISHED WORK.
The duty of the painter does not end with the hanging off of the finished vehicle. He has still one other important mission to perform, namely, proffering advice to the vehicle owner upon the preservation of carriage surfaces. Such advice may be directed along the following lines:--
Carriages require storage in apartments free from dampness, furnished with plenty of light, invited if possible, from all sides, and entirely removed from the stable and its attendant emanations of ammoniacal gases. Ammonia, make the vehicle user understand, is a deadly enemy to colors and varnish. Brick walls may also correctly be classed as paint and varnish enemies causing loss of lustre and general deterioration. A newly-varnished vehicle surface is greatly benefited, once the varnish is sufficiently hard to permit it, by frequent washings with clean cold water. Premature water baths, however, are to be avoided, save when made absolutely necessary by reason of mud spotting or other accidents of that order. The suggestion one hears occasionally offered to the effect that a surface may be safely rinsed with water three days after being finished is not founded upon practical paint-shop or varnish-making philosophy, so long as it is made to apply to a high-grade elastic varnish. Such a varnish may be, to a mere finger touch, quite dry, but in reality only the outer film is partially dry, and putting it into service or submitting it to a cold water bath are each in their turn risky experiments. The fact that an elastic varnish has reached the free-from-dust drying stage should not be taken as a trustworthy indication that the time for washing has arrived.
There is no question concerning the benefit of a cold water rinsing to a varnish surface that has well hardened as to its outer film. Frequent washings will then improve its lustre and durability. It must always be taken into consideration that in the case of first-class painting, assimilation of the various varnish coats ensues, and a fair measure of time is therefore necessary after the application of the finishing coat ere the washing can be safely given. In washing a varnish surface, gaseous impurities which so readily accumulate, are removed.
Varnish, when at a certain temperature, is susceptible of contraction when any colder body is brought in contact with it. This is the controlling principle of varnish washing. The contraction of a not properly hardened varnish, after cold water is applied to it, causes the liquid gas of the varnish to escape through the medium of evaporation. Drying, according to the natural laws of drying, a varnish retains those elements which add to its brilliancy and elastic properties. When forced to dry by virtue of premature cold water flooding, unfavorable results may be expected to follow.
Washing a newly-varnished vehicle should never occur under the bright glare of the sun. Plenty of water flooded gently upon the surface with a soft sponge is a necessity in the washing process. Dirt accumulations, if any, are softened and carried from the surface under the volume of water. After a careful sponging, the surface may be dried off nicely with a clean lint-free chamois skin. If a hose be used, it should be adroitly wielded, and the stream so gauged that no harm can come to the surface from the water pressure. The hose in the hands of an incompetent coachman is the cause of a great many accidents to freshly laid varnish.
Caution the washer against wetting the inside of the carriage body. Glue joints, etc., do not strongly resist the attacks of water. Under no circumstances permit water to dry on the surface. Stains more or less pronounced are almost sure to follow. Hot water, soapy water, or water not strictly clean should not be allowed to come in contact with a surface of varnish. Do not allow mud to dry upon the surface. Wash it immediately upon its return to the carriage house after being run in the mud.
SCHEDULE OF PRICES FOR RE-PAINTING.
The prices here given are presented in the nature of a working plan for the benefit of painters located in the smaller towns and villages of the country. The schedule is subject to revision or correction in localities where the prevailing grade of work does not warrant the adoption of the prices herein set forth.
Touch-up and varnish buggy or phaeton (dress top if necessary) $5.50 Rubbing bodies of above jobs, give coat of color throughout bodies and gears, stripe and finish 7.00 Extra coat of varnish to above jobs 2.00 Burning paint off body of phaeton or buggy, surfacing gears with lead and re-painting throughout 15.00 Burning paint from gear 3.00 Touch-up and varnish surrey 7.00 Extra coat of varnish for above job 3.00 Extra coat of varnish for body 1.50 Painting surrey throughout 14.00 Burning paint off entire job and re-painting 20.00 Touch-up and varnish cabriolet 10.00 Extra coat of varnish for above job 4.00 Extra coat of varnish for body 2.00 Painting cabriolet first-class throughout 23.00 Burning paint off body 3.00 Burning paint off job entire and painting 30.00 Touch-up and varnish a four or six passenger rockaway 20.00 Additional coat of varnish for above job 10.00 Surfacing upon the old paint structure and re-painting 40.00 Burning off body and re-painting job 50.00 Touch-up and varnish brougham or landau 25.00 Surfacing and painting over the old paint structure 48.00 Burning paint off body, re-painting, and finishing throughout 60.00 Touch-up and varnish Berlin coach 30.00 Surfacing and painting upon the old paint 55.00 Burning paint off body, re-painting and finishing entire 70.00 Painting and finishing hearse 45.00 Burning paint off body, re-painting, and finishing job entire 55.00 Touch-up and varnish hearse 20.00 Platform wagons: surfacing and painting upon old paint structure 12.00 Color, color-and-varnish, stripe, and finish 10.00 Varnish light business wagon 6.00 Painting light express or business wagon without top 10.00 to 12.00 Painting top light express or business wagon 2.00 Painting heavy express or business wagon 12.00 to 15.00 Painting top heavy express or business wagon 3.00 Lettering on vehicles, per foot, plain paint .15 to .20 Lettering, per foot, shaded .20 to .25 Lettering, per foot, shaded and ornamented .35 to .40 Lettering, per foot, plain gold .45 to .50 Lettering, per foot, shaded .60 to .70 Lettering, ornamented gold .80, .90, and 1.00