FAVORITE FORMULAS.
No. 1.—To 3 lbs. of any American filler add 1 lb. keg white lead. Beat well together; then reduce to a thick paste with rubbing varnish and japan, after which thin to brushing consistency with turps. This is a safe one-coat-per-day 'stuff.
No. 2.—Equal parts of filler (excepting English) and keg lead, by weight, reduced to a heavy paste in quick rubbing varnish and japan, and then cut with turps to the proper consistency. Two coats per day may be safely applied.
No. 3.—Five lbs. filler (still excepting English); 2 1/2 lbs. keg lead; 1/3 elastic rubbing varnish; 2/3 japan. This is a 'stuff for fine, heavy coach work. Apply coat every 72 hours. Do not rub out under three weeks.
No. 4.—(A London formula.) Dry white lead, ground stiff in turpentine, 1 1/2 lbs.; ochre, or English filling, ground stiff in turpentine, 4 lbs. Mix the two and add 1/2 lb. of tub lead. Add 1 pint of japan gold size and about 1/2 pint of the bottoms of wearing varnish. Reduce with a little turpentine if necessary. This is a very durable and elastic 'stuff.
No. 5.—(M. Arlot's formula.) "Grind separately lump white lead with essence of turpentine, and do the same with unwashed yellow ochre; then mix the two pastes in the proportion of 3/4 of white lead and 1/4 of ochre. Allow the mixture to stand exposed to the air or to a gentle heat in order to evaporate the excess of liquid, and add gradually small portions of good drying oil, taking care to stir and beat the mixture well with a brush, as in distemper painting. The paste thus acquires more body." Concerning this 'stuff the author adds: "It is possible with this composition to give three coats in a day's work, but after the last coat we must wait 48 hours for drying."
No. 6.—English filler 3 lbs.; keg lead 1 lb. Rubbing varnish and japan, half and half, to make a stiff paste. Thin with turpentine.
No. 7.—English filler, mixed stiff with rubbing varnish, 1/2; japan 1/2. Thinned with turpentine.
Probably genuine English filler has but few, if any, equals, and certainly no superiors as a roughstuff pigment. It polishes down very close and compact as to texture, giving a glass-like, non-porous surface. It requires less lead than other fillers, because of which property it was specially mentioned as excluded from formulas 2 and 3. It does not surface down as easily as some of the American fillers, a fact that has probably limited its use largely.
In using keg lead for roughstuff, a moderately stiff ground lead is advisable. A lead ground in an excess of oil will necessitate washing in turps to expel a portion of the oil, if the proper proportions of ingredients would be maintained. In mixing roughstuff, it pays to be exact as to proportions and quantities. Use first-class materials, varnish, japan, etc. Slops and refuse from varnish and japan cans are to be avoided. They leave the user in a state of uncertainty as to the composition of his 'stuff. If made in considerable quantities at a time, the pigment should be stored in a tight, dust-free receptacle and well covered with water or turps, else it will very soon become gummy and unsuitable for good work.
Paint Strainer.
The chief mission of roughstuff is to enable the painter to get a firm, hard, level surface. It requires putting on with a good brush, and a skilled and painstaking wielder of the tool. Roughstuff should be carried to a surface a little heavier in body than ordinary paint, but its spreading and flatting property should in no wise be made sluggish and "ropy" by the absence of thinning mediums. Better an additional coat of 'stuff than one coat less because of the excessively thick coats used. Roughstuff, like all quick setting pigments, needs to be applied, brushed out, and leveled quickly under the brush, so that brush marks may not intrude or uniformity in depth of film be wanting. Use a brush suited to the size of the panel; likewise a brush with a softness and fineness of point and sufficient elasticity to insure, if properly wielded, freedom from brush marks. Too heavy a pigment is no more a prolific cause of brush marks than a too nearly worn out brush. If the first coat of 'stuff is laid on the panel with horizontal strokes of the brush, let the second be laid with vertical ones, and vice versa. On a well-surfaced job, four coats should suffice. Where greater inequalities of the surface exist, more coats will be necessary. But it is an established maxim in both the practice and theory of carriage painting that the less roughstuff used upon a surface, granted that the quantity accords perfectly with the needs of the surface, the greater the durability of the paint and varnish structure.
The successful user of roughstuff is one who duly considers the importance of having a correctly-proportioned, finely-balanced mixture skillfully applied to the surface amid surroundings favorable to its prompt and thorough drying.
A guide coat to be used over roughstuff is made of a little of the 'stuff colored a bit with yellow ochre or Venetian red and thinned down considerably thinner than the 'stuff, with turpentine.
The workman who has roughstuff to rub requires, as an outfit, plenty of clean water right at hand, a good sponge, chamois skin, and a varied assortment of rubbing stones and bricks. The rubbing brick product, of German origin, has been considerably improved of late years; to such an extent, in fact, that it is now possible to obtain it as fine as wished for, and running from that up to a very coarse quality. However, for the very high class work, the natural lava, or pumice stone, is not to be surpassed. The quality of the rubbing accomplished depends much upon the selection of the blocks of pumice stone. The blocks of light weight, open grain, tunneled with innumerable air cells, are to be preferred for good cutting properties. Immersed in water, they float instead of sinking. The buoyancy of a piece of lava determines its porosity and its cutting power. This kind of stone may be used until the surface is well reduced, when, preferably, the stone of closer texture and tighter grain may next be used and continued in use until the final dressing up has been concluded. Select stones of large cutting surface. After the sawing, filing, and necessary dressing up of the stone in preparing it for the surface, it merits a thorough washing and rinsing to cleanse it from all minute atoms of grit, etc. In the actual work of rubbing a surface, keep the surface well washed to prevent gumming of the stone and to enable the eye to see just what the mind and muscle are doing; but do not flood the work with water. The rubbing stone is doing its work properly when, under an even, gentle pressure, it cuts smooth and free with a clinging, adhesive motion. When a particle of grit becomes lodged under the stone there will be a rolling, jarring motion, easy for even an unpracticed hand to detect, provided vigilant attention is being directed upon the work. When scratching of the surface occurs, the rubbing stone requires smoothing off with another stone, and the surface, stone, etc., given a thorough rinsing with clean water. Circular, zig-zagging motions of the stone are ill-advised. Straight, clean strokes, all directed in one general direction, are best and most effective. A surface is not always rubbed sufficiently fine when the guide coat disappears. The guide coat may be but a mere wash and disappear almost completely under a few strokes of the stone. The disappearance of such a guide(?) coat is not evidence that the proper surface has been reached. By repeatedly drawing the hand, with a good pressure, across the surface at right angles with the direction that governed the laying off of the final coat of filler, the workman can very accurately decide when an adequately fine surface has been reached.
To determine when a surface has been rubbed just enough usually gives the inexperienced rubber no little difficulty, but with practice he will master the accomplishment. On moulded panels it is advisable to rub the edges of the surface first, as it will lessen the tendency to thrust the stone forcibly against the moulding, thus chipping off atoms of stone to be ground into the surface later on.
Rubbing the roughstuff is the final process in the art of developing the comely and durable foundation. Does not the work, then, merit a full measure of skill, alertness, and patience in its execution?
CHAPTER IV.
PRISMATIC AND OBJECTIVE COLOR—HARMONIZING AND CONTRASTING COLORS—MIXING COLORS—TESTING THEM—ASSAYING FOR OPACITY, COLORING STRENGTH, BRILLIANCY, ETC.—TABLE FOR COMPOUNDING COACH COLORS, HUES, AND TINTS.
While colors, as we know them, differ from each other, they exist, according to the generally accepted theory, as simply different movements of the same element. The immense ocean of ether, which is in all space, is one, and the colors are all waves of that one ocean.
When a ray of light undergoes a change of direction it is divided into many minor rays, which to our visual sense are represented as colors. As, for example, if a ray of white light be directed through the edge of a triangular prism so that its course is bent or refracted, the ray is divided into several different rays of colors, these being thereby termed spectrum colors.
It is practically agreed by authorities that the rainbow affords the most complete illustration of spectrum colors, these being formed by the passage of light through the spray or drops of water in a shower. Color, then, may be said to be due to the action of light. Hence the established dictum, namely, white is a reunion of all the colored rays of the prismatic spectrum. It is a basic element in every color except black, and, as a color, black figures as an absolute neutral, it being devoid of white light.
The conditions and circumstances which unite to produce the varying and various color sensations have never yet been unanimously agreed upon by the eminent color theorists. The practical man may thread the remotest confines of color theories as expounded by Newton, Brewster Jones, Field, Rood, Young, and others, until his adventures bring him out on the toil-won heights and stupendous summits of the modern science of colors, and what he beholds will simply tend to confuse his intellect and more than ever convince him that the mastery of color laws remains yet to be accomplished; that no unalterable rule can be successfully applied to the theory of color. To those of my readers who desire to explore deeply into the recesses of color science, I would recommend the works by the afore-mentioned colorists. It is the purpose to deal in this chapter, so far as possible, with the more practical aspects of the science.
Objective color, as distinguished from what is termed illusive or prismatic color, is confined to those substances or materials endowed with the selective property for absorbing the colored rays from the light which is imparted to them, and which, in the technology of painting, are known as pigments.
The colors which make up the three orders usually, but not invariably, recognized by modern colorists, and which practically apply to the needs of the vehicle painter, may be placed as follows:[A]
| Primary Colors | Secondary Colors | Tertiary Colors |
| Red | Green | Russet |
| Yellow | Purple | Citron |
| Blue | Orange | Olive |
Carmine, ultramarine blue, and lemon chrome yellow most nearly approach to the prismatic colors, and, taking them for the primaries, we find, according to the deductions of Chevreul and others, that in proportional strength they rank thus: Yellow, the weakest, 3; red, medium, 5; blue, strongest, 8. To form the secondary colors, yellow, 3 parts, and blue, 8 parts, produces green, which is the contrasting color to red, the contrasting primary being always the color not contained in the secondary. Purple, the contrast to yellow, contains red, 5 parts; blue, 8 parts. Orange, the contrast to blue, has red, 5 parts; yellow, 3 parts. Any color in the secondary column opposite a color in the primary column is the contrasting color to that primary, and in the tertiary column, the tertiary opposite any given secondary may be accepted as the harmonizing color to that secondary's contrasting primary; as, for example, yellow, the primary, has purple as its contrasting, and citron as its harmonizing, color. In like manner russet harmonizes with red and olive with blue. The tertiaries may be produced by uniting the secondaries in equal proportions, or by the primaries being combined in the proportion of 2 parts of any given primary and 1 part of each of the two remaining primaries. For instance, olive is made of purple and green, both secondaries, or it may be made of blue, 2 parts, and 1 part each red and yellow. Citron is made from green and orange; russet from orange and purple. Referring to the three different orders of colors, it will be found that experiment will enable one to effect many changes in the development of color harmony. Any one color of any of the three orders will harmonize with the colors which contrast with the remaining two colors of the same order. Take the primary, blue. The contrasting colors to the remaining two primaries are purple and green, with which blue harmonizes. The contrasts to the primaries, red and blue, are respectively green and orange, with which the third primary, yellow, harmonizes. Or red will harmonize with the contrasts to the primaries, yellow and blue, which are purple and orange. Continuing the experiment to the secondary colors, it is found that green harmonizes with citron and olive, the contrasts to the two remaining secondaries, purple and orange; purple harmonizes with russet (russet contains a double share of red, bear in mind) and olive, both being contrasts to orange and green, the other secondaries. Orange harmonizes with citron and russet, the contrasts to purple and green.
These experiments in the domain of color contrasts and harmony might be pursued indefinitely, but the above will suffice to afford the student who essays the colorist's art (and what vehicle painter doesn't aspire to that art?) a practical working plan for the acquirement of such information as will enable him ultimately to successfully meet the exacting requirements of modern vehicle ornamentation. Knowledge of the harmony of analogy, a simple, effective, and ready way of varying painting, together with a knowledge of contrasts, the finer, higher, and superior system of effecting the most adorable and fetching color adornment, is an indispensable help to the painter, to attain which he can well afford to make many sacrifices.
The harmony of color as it applies to the use of two or more colors with reference to the relationships which should exist between them, requires to be further intensified by a strict and vigilant regard for the season, conditions, and circumstances which obtain when certain combinations of colors are employed. And for this reason: Blue is a cold color, chilly in the extreme at some seasons of the year, upon certain surfaces. It may be called a space color and imparts a retiring effect to form. Red, applied to form, appears stationary and gives a warmth of sentiment. Orange is, if anything, warmer in its effect than a full red. Bright yellow tends to excitement of the vision. Green has a conspicuous or advancing appearance.
The primary colors have no established hues, tints, or shades, but in every compound of the primaries a hue is recognizable. Green, for instance, as a compound of blue and yellow, can be made to vary surprisingly in hue as the proportion of one primary is increased and the other reduced, and vice versa.
In every compound of the primaries the predominating primary fixes the hue thereof. Hue, then, as an authority has well said, may be "a mixture of two or more colors of any order, but the mixture should not depart from the original color."
Tone, as applied to a color, measures the depth of the hue of that color.
Dilute a color, or the hue thereof, with white, and a tint of that color or hue is the result. To illustrate: By adding white to chrome yellow, the yellow is reduced along down through the long lists of tints until it reaches white.
A color or hue deepened by the addition of black becomes a shade of that color or hue; or, in other words, a shade is any color made deeper by the addition of black. The positive colors contain no white or black by mixture, while the negative colors do contain white or black or both.