Practical Carriage and Wagon Painting / A Treatise on the Painting of Carriages, Wagons and Sleighs, Embracing Full and Explicit Directions for Executing All Kinds of Work, Including Painting Factory Work, Lettering, Scrolling, Ornamenting, Varnishing, etc., with Many Tested Recipes and Formulas

by M. C. Hillick

SANDPAPERING

If it were feasible, sandpaper would, no doubt, be voted down and out of the paint shop. At present, however, it cannot well be removed from the system of carriage surfacing. The task of sandpapering, viewed from its rosiest side, is toilsome, dirt-inviting, girt up by a waistband of unpleasant features, but, alas! we must have level and smooth surfaces if we would have beautiful ones, and sandpapering affords the means of getting them. It is one of the aids—one of the great aids, let us bear in mind—to the admirable surface effects sought for in the art of carriage painting. It cannot be slighted or to any extent be done imperfectly without marring the appearance or subtracting from the durability of the surface when finished.

Beveled Point Putty Knife.

The use of sandpaper begins before even the priming coat has taken its position. A surface well sandpapered ahead of the priming coat saves a great deal of time and leaves plenty of the priming film on the surface where it is needed. No. 1 paper is the proper size to surface the priming coat, if the surface has previously been well smoothed. The No. 1/2 will do for first lead. This coat requires a very thorough and uniform going over, touching completely all places that need it, touching none with a coarse hand, and never laying bare a flicker of wood needing a full depth of protecting pigment. The second lead, or "dead lead" as we know it, should require only a light going over with No. 0 paper, this to be followed by polishing with curled hair or fine moss used by trimmers.

The rub lead and knifing lead coats usually respond to the smoothing caress of No. 1/2, or finer, paper, the size depending upon the quality of these coats. All along through the system of painting, sandpaper must needs sound its smoothing monotone, but particularly upon the primary coats does the painter use it as the fulcrum by which, among other aids, he seeks to rear his paint foundation into a tower of strength.

Oval Point Putty Knife.

Mouldings, clips, bolt heads, difficult places to work up to, everywhere bespeak the same thorough touch of the sandpaper. There are many sharp edges about a vehicle which may be denuded of pigment at a single rasp of the paper. Such parts require a good measure of protection, otherwise flaking and chipping of the paint and varnish must naturally follow. The painter may well strive to make the work of sandpapering an exact operation—exact as to thoroughness as applied to all parts of a surface, and exact as to a uniformity of results.

In company with the labor of sandpapering must be considered dusting. The latter should be cleanly and tidily done, quite as thorough, indeed, as the sandpapering or any other of the operations, all alike important. We now come to an article indispensable to the painter in arriving at a state of perfection regarding smoothness of surface.