Part 3

For tools, he needs a good, new, fine corn broom, a wide bristle sweeper (a ten or twelve-inch paper-hanger’s smoothing brush will do), a good duster, a sharp tool to pick out corners, a two-inch chiseled brush for corners. A sprinkler only turns dust to mud, to dry in a few hours and become dust again. When you have swept the floor with your broom and dusted your wood-work and gone over the floor carefully with your wide bristle brush to take what you brushed from the casings and what the broom left on the floor, look at the air across this ray of sunlight; it is full of dust, soon the most of it will settle on the floor and casings and window stools. What then? Wait till it settles and _wipe it off with a cloth_ and don’t forget the tops of the doors and casings. “Why use a cloth?” Well, if you go in and begin to use a dust brush after the dust settles you throw a portion of it in the air again and it will settle on the work. And by the way, I want to say that a wiping cloth is a very important article for a painter to carry. It always makes me “red hot” to see a painter (?), after he has daubed a key shield or a hinge, try to wipe it off with his thumb; I could forgive him for the daub; the best man in the trade may sometimes do that, but the man who will rub part of it off with his thumb and let the rest dry ought to be sent off the job or suspended long enough to take a lesson in the art of wiping off daubs.

I want to say further that every well regulated dusting kit ought to have a dust pan hitched to it in some way. It will save sweeping the dust out on the steps to be tracked in again, save the time you would lose in sweeping the dust over thresholds, or save the time it would take to borrow one.

PASTE FOR LABELING ON TIN.

Make a stiff flour paste in the usual way, with flour and water, then add 2 ounces tartaric acid, and 1 pint of molasses; boil the mixture until stiff, and put in ten or fifteen drops carbolic acid.

ANOTHER.

Wheat flour 1 pound Alum 2 drams Borax 2 drams Hydrochloric acid 1½ ounces

Mix the flour, alum and borax in the usual way, to a smooth paste in water, then add the acid and cook in the usual way with hot water.

TO MAKE TENTS, ETC., WEATHERPROOF.

To prevent tents, wagon covers, etc., from rotting dissolve 4 ounces sulphate of zinc in 10 gallons of water, then put in one-fourth pound sal-soda, stir well until dissolved and add one-fourth ounce tartaric acid. Let the cloth lie in this one day and night and hang up to dry. Don’t wring it.

TO PAINT ON CANVAS OR MUSLIN WITHOUT SIZING.

First stretch, then wet the cloth. Wipe off the drops and letter while the cloth is damp with color mixed with japan and turps.

TO PAINT ON ZINC.

A difficulty is often experienced in causing oil colors to adhere to sheet zinc. Boettger recommends the employment of a mordant, so to speak, of the following composition: 1 part of chloride of copper, 1 of nitrate of copper and 1 of sal-ammoniac are to be dissolved in 64 parts of water, to which solution is to be added 1 part of commercial hydrochloric acid. The sheets of zinc are to be brushed over with this liquid, which gives them a deep black color; in the course of 12 to 24 hours they become dry, and to their now dirty gray surface a coat of any oil color will firmly adhere. Some sheets of zinc prepared in this way, and afterwards painted, have been found to withstand all the changes of winter and summer.

PAINTING BLINDS.

When painting a blind never turn it upon edge when cutting in the inside of the rail, because the paint will be likely to run into the pivot-holes and stick the slats. When you set a blind up to dry, set the bottom end up, and be sure to have the slats lie flat side up. Why? Because the bottom end of the blind when hung is more apt to drag on the window sill than the top end is to touch the jam above. If set bottom end up, that end will dry solid and if there are any sags it will be at the top. Keep the slats flat side up to avoid flat edges.

TREATMENT FOR HARDWOOD FLOORS.

First see that the floor is clean and smooth; then give it a coat of best oil, with japan sufficient to make it dry; cut the japan in turps. Then put on a good mineral paste, filler in the usual way by rubbing the filler well into the wood; then clean off all the surplus. When dry, sandpaper and putty up well with colored, hard putty, and put on a coat of shellac; if too glossy, rub down with powdered pumice and oil. Be careful to have the putty match the floor.

WHITEWASH FOR OUTSIDE WORK.

Take one-half pound of fresh burnt lime. Dip it in water and let it slack in the open air. Melt two ounces of bagundy pitch by gentle heat, in six ounces of linseed oil; then add two quarts of skim milk while the lime is hot, add the mixture of pitch and oil, a little at a time while hot, and stir it in; then add three pounds of bolted whiting and stir. Add more milk if too thick for the brush.

THE STRAINER.

Don’t forget to use the strainer. After you have put in your best licks to clean up and sandpaper a job, it is the height of folly to daub it up with paint full of skins and specks. Oil paint is liable to be “skinny” in the keg. Miller’s bolting cloth makes a good strainer, and common cheese cloth at five cents a yard does very well for ordinary purposes.

TO KILL GREASE SPOTS ON WOOD.

Use a wash of saltpeter or a thin lime wash, then rinse with clear water. Treat blacksmith’s smoke in the same way.

KALSOMINE.

To please an old friend I give the following recipe for kalsomine. _He says it is good._ I never used it, so you will have to take his word for it.

Fifteen pounds good paris white, mixed up in lukewarm water, add one-fourth pound good glue, dissolved in the usual way, strain through a fine sieve, then dissolve one-fourth pound white hard soap in hot water and one-half pound of alum in cold water and mix. Add water to give the right consistency for putting it on the wall.

TO TAKE OFF THE PAINT.

If you have an old, roughly painted door to cut down for a fine job, don’t fool away your time, and fill your nose with dust, trying to do it with dry sandpaper, but take the door off its hinges, lay it flat on horses, and keep the surface under your sandpaper wet with benzine, and you can do in an hour what would otherwise take half a day. The benzine softens the paint, and keeps the paper from gumming up. If it is not practicable to take the door off the hinges, put your benzine in a small spring-bottomed oil can and squirt it on the work as needed to keep the paper clear of paint and make it cut fast. Wipe off the loose paint with rags. It works equally well on old varnish. Try it once on an old carriage body.

If the old paint is extra hard use a mixture in equal parts of benzine and ammonia.

CLEANING SILVER, BRASS OR COPPER.

In the course of our work we often meet with tarnished metal ornaments, which must be cleaned to make our work look well.

This preparation is a good one:

Paris white (fine) 1 pound Carb. magnesia 2 drams Cyanuret potash 7 drams Sulph. ether 3 drams Crocus martis 1 dram Soft water 1½ ounces or sufficient to make a stiff paste.

Mix by rubbing, add the paris white last, then stir into the water. Apply with a rag or sponge, and rub dry and polish with a rag or canton flannel.

WHY DO WALL PAPERS CRACK?

Some papers are more inclined to crack than others, because they are made of more brittle material. When selecting a paper for a whitewashed wall or ceiling, take a pattern which feels soft and pliable. Papers which crackle or rattle when crumpled in the hand are liable to crack. Papers which stretch or expand the most when wet are the most apt to crack; because when they dry and shrink the pull is so great that the fibers give away, if great care is not taken in putting it on. Cracking may be the fault of the paper hanger. He may use his paste too thick, or too thin, or put on too much or too little. Paste should be put on even and of the proper consistency and thickness to cement the paper to the walls. Paper is more liable to crack on rough and uneven walls. On a smooth wall, if properly put on, it becomes, as it dries, so fastened to the plaster that it cannot contract enough to break the fibers, but on a rough and uneven wall there are apt to be loose places where the air gets in, and the contraction of the paper so weakens the fibers that it cracks.

Now, if the paper hanger will be careful to secure the paper uniformly by using sufficient paste on rough places to hold the paper, and be careful to brush or pound the paper down firmly, he will greatly reduce the chances of cracking. A roller can not be depended upon for a rough wall. Too much or not enough sizing on a wall may be a cause of cracking. Hot paste, which thickens as it cools, is not safe to use on such walls, because it may appear just right when hot but will be too thick when cool and cause the paper to crack.

OIL SIZE FOR WHITEWASH.

Oil size is good to use on a whitewashed ceiling before papering if you don’t overdo it. A friend of mine thought, if a little was good, a great deal would be better; so he gave his ceiling two flowing coats of clear oil, and when dry put on his paper, but it did not stay. Why? Because he put on so much oil that he made a glossy surface _and the gloss could not hold the paste_. An oil size on whitewash is all right if used right. It is a mistake to use clear oil; 1 pint of oil, 1 pint japan and 1 quart turpentine is better, because it will penetrate further, dry faster, flat the surface, and have sufficient binding power to hold the whitewash from coming off. Don’t size a wall with paste. Paste and whitewash don’t go well together. The fact that you have to size your wall to make paper stick proves this.

Oil size should dry hard before the paper is put on.

I find glutol, manufactured by the Arabol Manufacturing Co., No. 13 Gold street, New York, a first-class substitute for glue in wall size and kalsomine, and prefer it to glue, because it will not attract flies, nor spoil by standing in hot weather, and can be mixed in cold water.

TO CLEAN BRICK.

The white powder which comes on brick can be removed by sponging with a mixture of muriatic acid and water, equal parts. Wash the brick in clear water and let them become well dried before painting.

TO CLEAN TARNISHED ZINC.

Mix 1 part sulphuric acid with 12 parts water and rub the zinc with it with a rag, then rinse with clear water.

TO GILD ON WOOD.

First get a good body and a smooth surface. The work should be flat with three coats at least on wood, and not less than two on iron or tin. The best size for outside work is oil gold size (fat oil), mixed with a little medium chrome yellow toned down with white lead; put in a very little japan gold size, and thin to workable consistency with turps; let it stand until tacky. It must be hard enough to prevent rubbing up or sweating. The method with the tip, gold knife and cushion requires considerable dexterity as well as practice to do good and rapid work. The tip, or lifter, is only a few camel hairs glued between two pieces of paste board, or other material. The knife is a long narrow flexible blade, and the cushion is made on a block, 6 by 8 inches, first covered with a thickness or two of woolen cloth, and finished by stretching a piece of chamois skin over it. Hold the gold book in the left hand, and turn back a leaf of the book, leaving the gold exposed on the next leaf; press the leaf of gold against the cushion and it will remain. Then straighten out wrinkles by a slight puff of the breath from above, cut the leaf into the required size with the gold-knife, and lift the leaf to its place with the tip. The tip will lift the gold better if occasionally drawn over the hair of your head.

Another way to prepare the leaf: Cut the book through at the binding with a sharp knife, which will leave all the leaves free and separate. Now take up the top paper or cover, which will leave the gold leaf on the book; lay the paper on a board and rub it over with a piece of wax, paraffine candle, or a piece of hard soap; either will do. Place the waxed side on to the gold, and smooth the paper down gently; repeat until you have as many leaves prepared as you need. Then, with good sharp shears cut them in such shape and size as will best cover your work, and not waste the gold. Lay the pieces on your board, gold side up. When ready, lay the pieces on the work, rub down with the fingers, or a ball of cotton, take off the paper and the gold will stay on the size. In this way the gold adheres quite firmly to the waxed paper, and the size must have a strong tack to take the gold off the paper. Experts lay the leaf directly from the book, and you had best learn to do it that way for general work, if you spoil half a dozen books while catching on to the knack of it. Try it this way: Now, here is a stripe half an inch wide, and the size is ready for the gold. Now hold the book flat in your left hand with your thumb on top, hold the top paper firm with your thumb. (If you let it slip, the leaf under it will be spoiled.) If the stripe is one-half inch wide, turn back enough of the paper to ex-pose three-fourths of an inch of the gold leaf, crease the turned back cover down with the fingers of the right hand, and hold it with the thumb on the back. Now cut the leaf with the finger-nail, first rubbing it dry on your pants; then turn the book carefully and quickly over on to the stripe, and press the gold down gently by pressing the book. Then turn down more of the paper, and repeat until that leaf is gone; then take another and so on. If the book gets too limber towards the last to handle well, have a square of cardboard to lay under the book next to the hand; you will find this is a help even with a full book. You will, perhaps, waste more gold in this way than by the transfer method, but you will more than make it up in time, if you become expert.

1st. Be sure of a good foundation.

2d. Have your gold size right, and study to know when the tackiness is just right. If your surface is not perfectly free from tackiness, pounce with a bag of gilder’s whiting before putting on the size, to keep the gold from sticking outside of the size.

When you lay the leaf from the book and cut the leaf with your finger nail, turn the ball of the finger toward you and the nail towards the gold, and run the nail close to the edge of the turned paper; then, if the nail is not too long, the end of the finger will hold down the paper while the nail cuts the leaf.

To prepare paper for the transfer method I rub the paper on my hair, then lay it on the gold leaf, gently rub it with my finger tips, and the leaf adheres to the paper.

It can then be cut with shears in any desired shape to cover the work.

Some gold leaf is now packed in paper so prepared that the leaf will adhere to one side of it and can be taken up in that way.

Some gilders take up the leaf by wetting the paper on the back with turpentine to make the leaf adhere to the other side, when it can be cut to the required shape with shears. This is done instead of waxing the paper.

STIR YOUR PAINT.

It isn’t always your material that makes a bad job, but it seems an easy matter to make even the best of paint the scapegoat for bad work. The heedless workman who primes a plastered wall without sweeping down the loose sand, or is careless about taking the sand and dust from the tops of casings and the floors, will, if he stops to examine, find some in the brush and some of it in his paint pot; and then, to cover up his carelessness, he can lay the blame on the paint. The careful painter will, when using heavy pigments, carry a paddle, and not neglect to use it. To prevent white lead and other heavy pigments from settling in the pot the paint must be well mixed, and kept mixed by stirring with a paddle as often and as much as may be necessary to _keep_ the oil or other vehicle, and the pigment well incorporated. No one out a novice, or a careless painter will permit a sediment to accumulate in the bottom of his pot; no matter whether the pigment is coarse or fine; or whether the vehicle used is linseed oil, turpentine or benzine. The painter who goes to work without a stirring paddle in his pot will be liable to do uneven work, and find more or less sediment in the bottom of his paint pot at quitting time, because there is no white lead made which does not contain more or less particles sufficiently heavy to _commence settling_ the minute the paddle stops, and go to the bottom of a pot of flating, as ordinarily mixed, inside of thirty minutes, and other particles of smaller size will follow later. If the pigment is mixed with oil the process of settling is slower, but no less sure to take place, and continue, if undisturbed, until clear oil stands on top of the pigment. Don’t try to use your brush for a paddle; it isn’t a good tool to stir paint from the bottom. Paint made of heavy pigment must be frequently stirred with a paddle to keep it of uniform consistency, but this operation is too often neglected. For instance, a man starts out with a full pot in the morning and neglects to stir his paint as he works, hence the heavier particles commence to settle and soon get below the dip of the brush, and by continual settling keep out of the reach of it until they reach the bottom. When the paint is nearly all out, and the sediment at the bottom don’t work well, he refills his pot, leaving in the coarse pigment. At night the boss finds an inch or less of coarse paint in the bottom of the pot, and without further inquiry complains that the lead is sandy.

Another instance: The paint for a job stands mixed over night; the painters fill their pots from time to time during the day, but never stir the paint from the bottom, hence the last pot or two filled will have all the coarse pigment of the batch. There are cases, I admit (too many of them), where not only white lead, but dry colors and colors in oil, are too coarse to work well, but the best white lead and heavy colored pigments in oil or turpentine are liable to be called sandy unless frequently stirred by the painter.

TO MAKE CHERRY STAIN.

Take annotto, 4 ounces, and clear rain water, 3 quarts. Boil in a brass or copper kettle, new tin or galvanized iron will do, until the color of the annotto is imparted to the water; then add ⅛ ounce potash, and keep the mixture hot for 30 minutes; then, as soon as cool enough to handle, it is ready for use. Now, have the work free from dust, and spread on your stain with a brush or sponge and rub it well into the wood.

When the work is dry, rub lightly with fine sandpaper, because the water stain will raise the grain unless the wood has been filled.

You can suit the taste of the owner as to depth of color by repeating the operation, or by making the stain weaker or stronger, as the case may require.

VARNISH STAINS.

These often come very handy to the painter, not only in toning up new wood, but in renewing the freshness of old work.

MAHOGANY VARNISH STAIN.

Spirits 1 gallon, gum sandarac 1 pound, shellac ½ pound, venice turpentine 2 ounces, dragon’s blood 4 ounces.

WALNUT VARNISH STAIN.

Shellac 1½ pounds, spirit 1 gallon, Bismarck brown 1 ounce, nigrosine ½ ounce. You can, by varying the proportions of the two colors, make the shade as you like it.

(Spirit in this connection means either wood or grain alcohol.)

MAHOGANY VARNISH STAIN.

Spirits 1 gallon, shellac 1½ pounds, Bismarck brown R ½ ounce, nigrosine 30 grains. More nigrosine will make the stain darker. If this is too thick to work well, thin with spirits.

TO MAKE NEW OAK LOOK OLD.

Sponge it with a strong hot solution of common soda in water. This will raise the grain, hence it will require cutting down with sandpaper.

DARK STAIN FOR OAK.

Make a solution of bi-chromate of potash, 1½ ounces to 2 quarts soft water. Lay on the solution with a good clean sponge and keep the wood wet with the solution until it is dark enough to please you. Then wash off the potash with clean soft water.

ANOTHER.

Apply with a brush, strong aqua ammonia until you get the desired shade.

RED SAUNDERS STAIN.

Fill a bottle ⅓ full of red saunders, then fill the bottle with either wood or grain alcohol. The more red saunders you put in, the stronger will be the stain; you can dilute it for the lighter shades. The longer it stands, the more color will be extracted. Always strain through muslin before using.

Red saunders makes a good cherry stain. When used on the bare wood it requires no binder, but when used over filled or oiled wood, put in one-fourth as much shellac varnish as you have stain, to act as a binder for it. If you want it to act as a filler as well as a stain, for pine or other close-grained wood, add 1½ pounds corn starch, to each gallon of the mixture of stain and shellac. Try a little and if it rubs up when dry, add more shellac.

You can mix red saunders stain with asphaltum varnish, to make black walnut and mahogany stains, using more or less of either to give the desired shade by using turpentine to make them mix. The asphaltum acts as a binder in place of the shellac.

The practical painter can get the shades he wants by experimenting on this line.

TO CHANGE THE COLOR OF WALNUT TO DARK MAHOGANY.

First give it a coat of very thin asphaltum varnish, then, when dry, give it a coat of red saunders and shellac.

You can mix the red saunders and asphaltum stain with any turpentine varnish, or with spirit varnish, if you use turpentine to make them mix.

Burnt umber and burnt sienna in oil or varnish make a walnut stain. Use but little of the pigments in proportion to the oil. Too much pigment gives the work a muddy color.

NATURAL WOOD FINISHING.

Clean up all soiled places on the wood. To be sure of a good job on open grained wood use a Bliss Rock Wood Filler. If you use a ready made filler, thin as per directions on the can. Whatever filler you use, put it on with a good brush. As soon as the filler begins to set, or show flat, commence to rub it into the grain with a pad made by gluing a piece of harness leather onto a block; always when practicable rub across the grain of the wood. For round work have a long piece of leather to draw back and forth around the work. Remember the main thing at this stage is to get as much of the filler as possible rubbed into the wood.

Another important point is to take off the surplus filler before it becomes too hard to wipe off, and another point is to wipe off the surplus filler and leave the pores of the wood level full. Hence, it is important that the filler does not dry too fast, that the painter puts on no more filler at a time than he can handle before it dries, and that in wiping off the surplus filler he works his rags across the grain. Some very open grained wood requires a second application of filler to make a good job, or at least to be looked over and touched up. The filler should have at least two days to dry. When dry go over it lightly with fine sandpaper to take off all particles of filler left on the surface.