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

STRIPING, CORNER PIECES, SCROLLS, ETC.

In the striping of cutters and sleighs the real basis of success is a judicious selection of colors. It has been a common saying in factory circles that anything in the way of colors, hit or miss, goes in sleigh painting when the ornamenting is reached. But this should not be so; in point of fact, it is not so in those establishments doing a good class of work. A riotous jumble of colors thrown into a fine line corner piece or scroll is an abominable exhibition of bad taste. There is nothing, we dare say, that so completely stamps the cheap cutter or sleigh with a glaring badge of cheapness as the ornament constructed from an inharmonious selection of colors and dotted to beat a Baxter St. vest lining. The dotter has no business striping or ornamenting the modern cutter or sleigh. The ornamental features of sleigh work need to be of a very high order of excellence. Otherwise it fails to correspond to the quality of finish which now obtains in all first-class establishments where sleigh work is carried on. In this connection the reader's attention is directed to examples of fine line ornaments adapted to Portland cutters and sleighs; also to examples of the bold, handsome relief scrolls once so extensively used, and which show so beautifully upon cutters and sleighs of the swell body pattern.

Fig. 7.

Ornaments Nos. [1], [2], and [3] are quick pencil sketches for panel corners. The writer contributed these pieces to The Hub some time ago and their reproduction must be credited to the courtesy of that journal. [No. 4] is used upon the dashes of Portland cutters, speeding sleighs, etc. Two distinct corner pieces are shown in this design, thus illustrating the possibilities of variation in respect to the corner designs employed. [No. 5] is a corner piece designed for Old Comfort and Empress cutters. This piece may be done in three or four shades of red, or it may be placed in gold and high lighted in relief style. In [No. 6] is to be seen a very attractive design for the dash or rear panel of a large four or six passenger sleigh. [No. 7] is expressly intended for swell body cutters and represents an ornament familiar to many old-time painters. It is a decidedly effective scroll and will afford the student in scroll work a good working plan for further effort. Nos. [8] and [9] explain the style of the good-old fashioned scrolls which, when ably executed, may be declared the poetry of ornament. Vehicle painting lost one of its chief charms when the relief scroll was abandoned, and we say speed the day when it is welcomed back to its old time uses and prestige. Then fortunate indeed will be the painter who is able to do relief scrolling.

Fig. 8.

Transfer ornaments of the small patterns are still used and they really furnish happy little surface beautifiers at small cost. One can quickly master the work of successfully applying transfers or "Decalcomanie," as our friends of the genteel speech may say. Cut the transfer down close to its true outlines, and then to the back of the ornament apply a size of finishing varnish and japan gold size. When this has reached the right "tack," it is placed in position on the surface. It is then given a few minutes to fasten itself securely upon the surface, after which it is washed over with clean water until the covering over the face of the transfer is sufficiently moistened to free itself, when lo! the ornament in all its freshness and coloring of raiment is revealed. The washing of the transfer is something of a delicate operation as it is a perfectly easy matter to disfigure the ornament or flood it out of position by careless practices.

Fig. 9.