CARRIAGE PAINTING IN THE VILLAGE SHOP.
NEW WORK.
Prime with white lead, mixed thin in oil, add a little japan and turpentine to make the paint dry hard and quick; when the priming is dry and hard, putty up with hard putty as directed on another page. Then follow with two coats of keg lead thinned with turpentine; add a little japan to make it dry hard, and a little oil to make it work well. Carefully mix and strain your paint. Give the body five coats of rough stuff, made as directed on page 144 and a guide coat, and when dry, proceed to cut down the rough stuff. For this purpose your tools will be several pieces of pumice stone, a pail of water, a large flat file, a good sponge and a chamois. Flatten one side of your stone for a grinding surface and have no thin edges, because they will keep breaking off and be liable to get under the stone, and scratch your work. Now, two of the most important things you will have to guard against is cutting through the rough stuff and lead coats, and scratching the surface. There is a great difference in pieces of pumice stone. Some are hard and full of flint like particles, which will scratch the work; others are softer and of more even grit; the light colored and fairly open grained pieces are the safest to use. You can tell a fast cutting stone by its open grain and lightness. The finer grades of German rubbing brick and English rubbing stone are also used in rubbing rough stuff. A stone with a broad surface is preferable for large surfaces.
Have small pieces to rub around the bolt heads and other places which are difficult to get at with the large stone. The practiced workman can tell the moment a stone begins to scratch, both by the sound and by the feeling to the hand, and you may train your ear and nerve to this degree of sensitiveness; until you do so, you will have to look sharp, and frequently rub your stone on the file, and clean off your work with a sponge full of water to see the condition of the work. Also by passing your hand back and forth across it to determine the condition of it, or if there is any large grit on it, liable to get under the stone and scratch. Rub until the brush marks are gone, etc., which your guide coat will show you. Use plenty of water while rubbing. Thoroughly wash the body inside and out. When dry, sandpaper lightly over the body to remove any grit which may be left on, and to clean out around the irons and panels, also to sand off the irons which you have not rubbed. Dust and wipe well, and when ready, put on a coat of drop black, ground in japan. In mixing your drop black, stir it before you add any turps, then add a little turps, and stir again until it is beaten to a smooth, soft paste; then add sufficient turps to make a workable paint, thin enough to go on easily with a camel hair brush, which for body work on buggies should be not less than one and one-half inches wide and double thick. Painters disagree as to the use of oil in this coat. I like to use a very little good raw oil, say a teaspoonful to a pint of color. It is a good idea to keep a brush on purpose to coat the inside of the body, because it is not usually made as smooth as the outside. Some practice putting on the color coat in the morning and the color varnish towards evening, but I prefer a longer time, say twenty-four hours at least, and more, too, especially when I use a little oil in the color coat. Rub the color with curled hair or hair cloth, dust well, and put on your color varnish; some say with a bristle varnish brush, but I prefer to mix it so I can use a camel hair brush. For this coat mix drop black to a workable paint with equal parts of turps and good body varnish. When this coat is dry, give the body a coat of good rubbing varnish, using a fine bristle varnish brush. Flow on a free coat, lay off to right and left, and finish with up and down strokes across the work. Never put a full brush at the lower edge of the body, because in that case, you will be apt to get a fat edge. Watch for sags or runs, which you can brush out, if discovered before the varnish sets. If a sag or run should get the start of you on this coat, and you see it after the varnish begins to set, squeeze the varnish out of your brush, wet the point of it in turps, and carefully work out the sag or run. Now, dust off the running parts, and put on a coat of color. Some say, have a little more oil in the color for the gear than for the body, but I would not advise the use of more. When dry, put on a coat of color varnish. When dry, rub down with hair or hair cloth, and your gear is ready to stripe.
To paint a wheel, paint one spoke at a time, paint both sides and the edge next to you, then take your brush in your left hand and paint the back edge, and so on, until the spokes are finished. Next paint the hub, then the outside and inside of the felly, then finish the gear, being careful to leave no laps. Use only fine lines for striping a buggy. On the springs, bars, spoke faces, hubs and tongue is all the striping needed. Orange chrome, red, gold, bronze and light green, all harmonize with black, and either may be used for striping a black rig. When ready to varnish, set your gear on trestles. Varnish the wheel with a fine bristle varnish brush, and flow on a full coat. When done with a wheel, set it running on the spindle, and commence the next, and start it off again two or three times, while working at the next wheel, and so on with all the wheels; by this method you may avoid runs, and be able to flow on a fuller coat than you otherwise could. For a finer job, give the gear a coat or two of clear rubbing varnish, and rub each coat down with curled hair or hair cloth. For a cheap job, rub down the body with hair cloth, but for a finer one, rub it out with finely powdered pumice stone in water. For this method, you will need a pail of clear water, some finely powdered pumice stone and a felt pad. The object of this work is to take the gloss off the rubbing varnish, and leave a smooth coat for the finishing varnish. The particular knack is to rub just enough, and then stop; a little too much will cut through, and spoil the job; and not enough will not give you the best possible foundation for your finishing coat of varnish. Keep the work washed off as you go, so you can see defective places, and rub them out. When done rubbing, the next thing is to wash the body perfectly free from grit. Your water brush comes in play here to wash around irons, etc., where the pumice might lodge; then with a pail of clear water, rinse the body and wipe dry with a chamois skin. Right here is a good time to give the inside of the body a coat of color varnish, and to put on your transfers, if you use any. Some painters use a barrel for a body stand, but one made on purpose, of boards, is better. You want to look out for dust in every stage of the work, but right here you must be especially careful, because you are about to put on the finishing coat, which can neither be sandpapered nor rubbed down. You will learn from experience, if not before, that you cannot rely altogether upon the dust brush to free your work from dust and specks. A large soft dry chamois kept for the purpose, and never wet, can be used to advantage to wipe off the dust left by the brush. A hand bellows is very effective in taking dust out of corners where the brush or wiper cannot be worked. When you have done all you can with the brush and wiper, rub the work over with your hand and the sensitive nerves of your fingers will detect any specks which may still adhere to the surface. Some other essentials to a good job of varnishing are a clean room, free as possible from dust, clean brushes, and cups, and the person of the varnisher so dressed that he will not shed material for specks. Have one cup to hold your varnish and another to wipe your brush in. Use good varnish and never try to varnish a body with the temperature below 70 degrees F. Have a quill sharpened to a point to pick out any specks which you may discover on your work, because it requires very favorable conditions, and a mighty slick workman to prepare and varnish a body, and not have it show at least a speck or two. Use a fine chiseled bristle brush and know that it is absolutely free from specks before you commence. Now, when you are ready, don’t be timid or try to see how far you can make your varnish go. Keep in mind from the start that the nearer level—that is, a uniform thickness—you can have your coat of varnish the less liable it will be to sag or run. Put on your varnish with a full brush, laying it on right and left, and brush as level as you can, then finish with up and down strokes, being careful to chisel off the surplus at the lower corner to avoid a flat edge. Note—A friend of mine, after laying on his varnish right and left, finished with diagonal strokes across the surface at an angle of 45 degrees, then crossed it again at the same angle in an opposite direction. He had uniform good success.
For an extra fine job, give the work more coats of rubbing varnish, and rub each coat with curled hair, or hair cloth; or you may knife on a coat of putty made of keg lead and equal parts of turps and japan; rub it well in with the flat blade of the knife, and when it sets or flats, scrape off all surplus. Sandpaper when dry. This may go on in the place of third lead. You may, when the job requires it, knife on a coat of hard putty, work it down smooth, let it dry and cut down with sandpaper.
OLD WORK.
There are so many degrees of badness in repair work, that it is not possible to cover the entire ground in a work of this kind. They run all the way from the touch up and varnish job, to the cracked, scaled and almost paintless old rigs. For a touch up and varnish job, at least one which is in decent shape for such work, wash the body, give it a rubbing down with fine powdered pumice stone, clean off and carefully putty cracks, dents, etc., if any; then touch up with color, using a small camel’s hair pencil, and cover only where necessary. When dry, give a full coat of body varnish. For a better job, give the body a coat of black rubbing varnish (provided the body is black), then finish with a good coat of wearing body. The gear may be treated the same as the body if in like condition, but if the felloes are worn bare, lead them up and color as you would new work, then touch up the balance and varnish.
The great plague of the paint shop is cracked work, which is otherwise solid. Where the varnish is hard but peeling, take it off with ammonia; to do this, take a side of the body at a time, pour out some ammonia in a cup, and put it on with a clean brush kept for the purpose. Keep the side wet, until you can slice off the varnish with a putty knife; if it fails to come off, you must keep it wet longer. If the varnish is dead and soft, sandpaper down to a solid foundation, then if cracks show sheet up with quick hard putty made soft enough to put on with a brush, and scrape off with a knife when set. When dry, sandpaper and if the cracks are not full, give it a second application of putty in the same way. Then for a cheap job give it a coat of color varnish, a coat of rubbing and a coat of body varnish.
If you are to do a fine job, and can get pay for it, and you find the body cracked, burn off the old paint, and commence at the foundation as in new work. For a cheap job, lead up the bare places on the gear and wheels, give a coat of color and a coat of color varnish and finish with heavy gear varnish. For a fine job, if the old paint is cracked or scaled, take it off and work up from the wood as on a new job.
ROUGH STUFF.
1. To make one coat per day rough stuff, take three pounds of Reno’s filler and one pound of keg lead. Mix to stiff paste with equal parts of rubbing varnish, and first-class japan, thin with turps. Some painters add a little raw oil. Grind the filler fine.
2. French yellow ochre dry, 5 pounds; keg lead 1½ pounds. Mix to stiff paste with equal parts gold size, or best brown japan and rubbing varnish; thin with turps and add a gill of raw oil. Grind fine.
CLEANING PHAETON CUSHIONS.
This old phaeton cushion is too dusty for any use, did you say? I agree with you; the old cloth-covered phaeton cushion is one of the unmitigated nuisances which we are often compelled to tolerate in the paint shop. When such a cushion is once filled with dust its capacity for “shedding” seems to be unlimited. The more you beat it and the longer you brush it, the more dust comes to the surface. You can take off a buggy cushion and relegate it to the backroom, but the genius who invented that complicated vehicle called a phaeton, nailed the cushions fast to the body, and we must take them along with the job, dust and all, from the cleaning floor to the varnish room.
When I am so unfortunate as to have an old phaeton brought to my shop, about the first thing I do after cleaning it up is to go for the cushions with the sprinkler and wet them down with clean water, repeating the operation as often as may be necessary to keep in the dust.
Spoil the cushions? No! When you run the rig out of the shop the owner will wonder what you have done to his cushions to make them look so bright. The same operation works well on an old cloth-lined top. After you have brushed all you think you can afford to, and the dust keeps coming to the front, turn the top bottom side up and give it a shower from the sprinkler, and I will guarantee the dust to lie still long enough for you to dress the top and paint the bows. Dust is the natural enemy of the paint shop, and water is one of our best weapons to fight it with.