BLACKS.
In carriage painting, the black surface fairly reigns supreme. At first thought, the painting of a fine black surface would seem to involve a very common turn of trade craft. It involves, in the largest sense, a high grade of workmanship, rather than a common one, this painting of the black surface. Coach black ground in japan, in which state the carriage painter gets it, should have a binder of varnish, instead of oil, and should be thinned with turps so as to spread freely under a camel's-hair brush and to flat out to a fine, soft, velvety texture. Easy working, without brush marks, is a paramount virtue, regardless of the opacity or covering power of the black. A high grade ivory black is less opaque, and consequently covers less solidly, coat for coat, than does the cheaper, but less lustrous, black. Hence, the covering power of a color can never be accepted as a safe guide to direct the thinning of said color. To make the highest quality of black to cover as solidly at one coat as an inferior grade of black at one coat might, would necessitate using the best black so thick as to invite a disastrous sweep of brush marks. More and thinner coats of color, minus brush marks, are preferable to fewer and heavier coats with brush marks in plenty.
Black color-and-varnish, a popular coating up and surfacing material for vehicle bodies and running parts, is best used upon all the lighter grade of bodies by tipping them so that the side panels at least present a flat, upturned surface, the device, [Fig. 9], in Chapter I. of this work, being used effectively for holding such bodies in position. The half elastic brush, flat and chisel pointed, is the most available tool for flowing the color-and-varnish on bodies. For applying the black color-and-varnish to running parts, the camel's-hair flowing brush is an easy and fine working tool and is principally used for that purpose in many foremost carriage paint shops. Like all color-and-varnish, the black variety should be furnished with a ground free from defects, and should be used simply for the enrichment of that ground, to give it depth, density, and an intense jet black color. Such an achievement is impossible through the agency of color coats and clear rubbing varnish coats, pure and simple.