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

TOPS AND DASHES.

The proper care and treatment of carriage tops and dashes forms one of the significant features of the re-painting business. About every class of citizens who have to do with carriages—the trimmer, harness-maker, livery man, blacksmith, hack-driver, and jockey—regularly come forward bubbling over with advice and formulas for the preservation of tops; but usually the paint shop is resorted to as the Court of Appeal. The aim of the painter should be to impart to the top and dash a finish which will correspond to that given the other parts of the vehicle, at the same time furnishing the leather or rubber a preservative agent that will provide reasonable durability.

In every jobbing paint shop a space should be set apart for the safe and clean storage of tops and dashes; also cushions, carpets, and other interior furnishings. In the space selected for the purpose a rack made to conform to the size of the space may be erected. Build it to consist of two tiers, with a half-story tier above for the holding of cushions, carpets, etc. If the space is large enough, make the rack, say, 12 feet long, 10 feet high, and 4 feet wide. The two first tiers will hold six buggy tops. The rack is made of 1-inch and 2-inch stuff, hemlock, say, and need not cost to exceed $1.50. Tops that are regularly calashed will require only half space. Under no circumstances should a top be calashed and stored away in the shop unless it has been used and subject to such treatment. The top (and the dash also, when removed), upon removal should be cleaned thoroughly before being set away. If the top joints need a coating of lead it should be given them prior to placing them in the rack or permanent storage place. It is bad policy to defer painting and finishing such parts until it is nearly time to hang off the other parts of the vehicle. A uniform quality of finish cannot in this way be secured. The irons on tops, if chipped, rusted, etc., require lead, often a facing with putty, color, color-and-varnish, a light rub with pumice stone flour and water, and finishing with a good hard drying varnish. A few days before the vehicle is finished the top belonging to it may be taken in hand, the lining carefully dusted out, and the leather or rubber sponged off and dried over with a chamois skin. The further treatment may depend upon the material of which the top is composed. A great many vehicle owners, livery men in particular, prefer to have leather tops—except the badly worn ones—go without a dressing of any kind, a simple washing with castile soap and soft water being thought to amply suffice. Hand-buffed leather tops in good condition, in the writer's estimation, require no dressing; the machine-buffed ones, however, are benefited by a thin, evenly-applied coat of some strictly reliable enamel top dressing. And it is pertinent here to say that even the best of dressings, those which long usage has sanctioned as of established value, are of such a nature that they are beneficial only when applied sparingly. A dressing, to be genuinely useful to the carriage painter, should preserve the enamel of a top, strengthen the leather or rubber, and enable it to retain its natural flexibility for the longest possible period.

If, then, the top be rubber or machine-buffed leather, apply dressing, not forgetting the side curtains. If a leather top and the owner wishes it to be given some preparation other than the regulation enamel top dressing of commerce, the following formulas may be used, the two first being particularly beneficial to the leather.

Formula No. 1.—Neatsfoot oil, 1 pint, beef suet, 1/8 lb. Melt the oil and suet together. Then add a tablespoonful of melted beeswax, mixing the ingredients carefully, and confining in an air-tight vessel. The beeswax has a cooling property greatly to be desired in a leather preservative.

Formula No. 2.—Darken neatsfoot oil with a drop black. Apply sparingly and rub out well with soft rags. This formula does not give the brilliancy of finish that an enamel dressing does, but it gives to the leather a softness and pliability not obtained otherwise.

Formula No. 3.—Adapted for either rubber or leather. Of finishing varnish, 1 quart; beeswax, 1 oz; drop black, sufficient to color mixture properly. Thin to a brushing consistency with the turpentine. The worth and reliability of No. 3 is vouched for by a jobbing shop painter of twenty-five years' experience.

Formula No. 4.—This provides for the use of boiled linseed oil stained with drop black thinned with turpentine. Apply this preparation with a brush, rubbing it out well and uniformly. Set aside for 30 minutes; then with clean soft rags, rub the mixture off, polishing until a clean cloth shows no stain when rubbed over the leather. Places which show cracks and hard service will need a second coating with the mixture. The leather is not thickened with this mixture, has no unusual attraction for dust and dirt, and will remain soft and flexible.

Fine grained leather dashes, fenders, etc., which do not look worn or rusty, appearing only soiled and somewhat smeary, may be gone over with a cloth saturated lightly with kerosene oil, and then polished with soft woolen rags.

The commoner grades may be given patent enamel dressing, or, if preferred, a thin coat of drop black rubbed off immediately with soft rags and then flowed with a first-class finishing varnish. If much worn, they may be greatly freshened up and renewed if treated with some of the formulas given herewith.