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.
CHAPTER XIV.
A STUDY OF MATERIALS: WHITE LEAD, ITS PURITY, ETC.—QUALITY OF COLORS IN GENERAL—ADULTERATION PRACTICALLY CONSIDERED—PURITY OF RAW LINSEED OIL—TURPENTINE—TESTING COACH JAPAN—VARNISH.
The name of a thing should not be accepted for all there is to the thing itself. The carriage painter has very pronounced reasons for bearing this fact in mind when engaged in studying and passing judgment upon the materials he finds it needful to use in his business. Probably the most important pigment which finds its way into the carriage and wagon paint shop is white lead. This pigment has afforded a theme for increasing discussion, its qualities and adaptability having been extensively canvassed. Numerous substitutes have been introduced during the past two decades, but white lead still retains its pre-eminent popularity. Lead compounds and various adulterated brands have given the painter plenty of trouble, and caused him to devote more attention to the quality of his white lead stock than formerly. Because of its soft, pliable, grain-filling property, its established elasticity, density, body, fine working quality, and its merits as a reliable drying pigment, white lead is the filling up and foundation material par excellence.
The purity of lead deserves the carriage painter's first consideration. It has been practically determined that a pure lead, endowed with all the virtues which should distinguish pure lead, when mixed and used in combination with other pigments or colors, holds its quality better and is less susceptible of change than a compound or adulterated lead. Moreover, pure white lead, with its soft, fine, elastic texture, has a natural adhesiveness, a surface-filling and leveling-up property, which the impure lead carrying a percentage of gritty, flinty ingredients does not possess. The pure lead works out under the brush more pleasantly and with less brushing than the compound, and it dries with greater uniformity, etc.
At the same time it is well to remember that a strictly pure lead may have a number of features in its make-up decidedly objectionable to the carriage painter. It may be imperfectly washed, or it may be too coarsely ground, etc. In his study of white lead, then, the painter will find it a matter of value to determine the adaptability of the lead to the requirements of his business. After convincing himself of the purity of the lead, it remains for him to test for fineness of grinding. A lead ground fine—impalpably fine, if it please my readers—lightens the labor of sandpapering, strikes into the wood fibres stoutly, and covers the maximum surface space. It has good coloring and covering power when mixed with colors to form tints, and for other important parts which a white lead plays in vehicle painting it is especially adapted.
Nor should a carriage lead be ground in too large a percentage of oil. For coats between priming and color but comparatively little oil is needed, and washing out with benzine or turpentine entails an unnecessary amount of labor. Hence, it should be insisted upon that carriage painters' lead be ground moderately stiff in oil, so that protracted washing-out may be avoided on the one hand, and extended mixing and breaking-up operations shunned on the other. A practical and, at the same time, a conclusive test of fineness is furnished by taking two pieces of plate glass 8×8 inches in size, setting them securely in blocks of wood, and then smearing a couple of small flakes of the lead, rubbing the pieces of glass together. Continue rubbing with a firm, even pressure until a uniform distribution of the pigment and a thorough impact is established. The glasses should then disclose the nature of the grinding. To learn the drying power of the lead, take the palette knife and slick a small quantity over the glass and set aside, noting the time consumed in drying. A lead ground in the proper proportion of oil for carriage work should, as taken from the keg and smeared in a thin film over the glass, dry in twelve hours so that the finger may be passed over it without sticking.
What has here been said in reference to chemical purity or strictly pure as a necessity in the white lead product does not apply to all the pigments so useful to the vehicle painter. For reasons here shown lead extenders and lead compounds should be emphatically objected to. A disavowal of their worth as carriage painting pigments, however, in no wise lessens the significance of the fact, as already pointed out, that a strictly pure lead is very often an expensive, if, indeed, it be not a worthless, lead to buy. Chemically pure is not invariably an accurate gauge of quality. A chemically pure lead that has not fineness to recommend it lacks an essentially vital quality. In respect to the pigments and colors following in the wake of white lead it has been made plain on many a hard-fought field of experiment that the color consumer, the practical painter, the workman far removed from the analytic gentleman of the laboratories, is chiefly concerned in getting a pigment or color adapted to his needs more completely than any other available one. It may not be chemically pure as the chemists would construe the term; but if it responds satisfactorily to a practical test, it is then serving the painter's practical need. As declared by the writer, in an article published some time ago, "a color or pigment may be pure in the sense that it is not adulterated, and still fall short of being chemically pure. It is the duty of the consumer to avoid buying, under the label 'strictly pure,' an adulterated color. The real color contained in such a product is then costing him considerably more than would a color in a state of purity." The chemist and the practical painter do not agree oftentimes upon what may be called adulterants. Once upon a time, as the fairy books say, at a painters' convention the chemist employed to make an analysis of chrome yellow stated in substance that practically everything outside of the chromate of lead should be classed as an adulterant or as a matter out of place. The practical painter who has looked up the subject of chrome yellow manufacture could tell the chemist in this case that he has signally failed to take into consideration the necessary constituents of the different shades of chrome yellow. As, for example, acetate and nitrate of lead, bichromate of potash and bichromate of soda, sulphate of soda, etc., are constituents of a pure chromate of lead. And our friend, the chemist, would tell us that a chromate of lead composed of some of the above ingredients is not a chemically pure article. What the carriage painter, the consumer, will find it of value to ask himself is this: Does a given pigment or color suit the requirements of my business? If in doubt as to the utility of the given pigment or color, then an immediate practical test should be resorted to. It is not the purpose of the writer to belittle the position or the usefulness of the chemist. The value of a chemical analysis in the detection of adulteration and in explaining how a color is made is cheerfully acknowledged; but after the chemist's deduction must follow the practical test. In conducting a practical test the foremost aim of the painter should be to consider the color or pigment to be tested in relation to the object for which it is intended. Shade, brilliancy, working property, durability, etc., are entitled to a careful and chief consideration in a test for quality. And a test for quality, if conducted painstakingly and thoroughly, will disclose the real value of the material to the consumer. When extenders are added to a pigment for the sole purpose of enriching the manufacturer at the expense of the consumer, the practice becomes adulteration, pure and simple. If, however, such extenders are used to, and actually do, increase a pigment's usefulness, fortifying it in a way and to an extent that it needs to be fortified, the painter will not attempt to question its commercial value.
The study of the pigments which the vehicle painter calls to his uses is a feature of business deserving the most rigid attention. Carried on watchfully and with a vigilant regard for details, it cannot well fail to increase paint shop profits.