MIDSUMMER PAINTING.
All things considered, which is the best time of the year to do outside painting? Spring and fall, did you say? Well, yes. I know nearly all painters think so, and the people outside the trade are almost, if not quite, unanimous in holding the same opinion. But why? Do the winds of March, the frequent showers of April and May add very much to the pleasure and profit of doing outside work in spring? Do the soaking rains, which come along about the time of the vernal equinox and drive you off your job for a week or two and watersoak your unprimed work, add much pleasure to your recollections of spring painting? Do you remember anything about the clouds of midges and thousands of little moths which filled the air, ready and willing to decorate your paint with their little bodies on every still, warm mid-day in April and May? Of course, we are speaking now of climatic conditions from our own standpoint, the great Northwest, which may also be true in the Middle and New England states. The mornings and evenings of spring and fall are apt to be cool—often frosty; then the oil stiffens and the paint rubs out hard and goes on slow, and we lose time and work harder. Practically, I favor midsummer for outside work, because the temperature is more uniformly warm and the paint spreads easily and evenly at any time of day, and as a rule the rains are less frequent and give a longer warning of their approach. The little black flies are not so plentiful in the hot days of summer as they are in spring and early fall. They are either dead or seek the shade of trees and grass. The dew is all gone in summer before seven o’clock a. m., and does not commence to fall until after quitting time. A carpet of grass and other vegetation covers a large portion of the ground in summer, holding down the dust. The winds are not usually so high and gusty in summer as they are in the spring and fall. In the warm days of summer your work is more apt to dry quickly, cleanly and evenly; and when you “knock off” from work at six p. m., and the sun is yet two hours above the horizon, you know that your last ground stretch will soon be out of the way of dust and rain. In the hot weather of summer the pores of the wood are all open, and the oil, which is then soft and thin, goes farther into the wood than in spring and fall, when the weather is cool. There are, it is true, some fine days in the fall for outside work, but the rainy season of the autumnal equinox and the frosty nights of the later months often retard your work and mar the finish of your job. One objection urged against summer painting is the flies, but really are the flies which injure paint any more numerous in midsummer than they are in spring and fall? It is true the festive house-fly is in his glory in the summer, but, as a rule, he is too smart to get stuck in outside paint. To get inside is his ambition, and the molasses-cup and sugar-bowl are his objective points. If the house-fly is an objection in the summer, it certainly is a greater one in the fall, for in September and early in October they are thicker, saucier and more familiar than at any other time of year; then they want not only to get at the sugar, but to get in and warm.
A correspondent asks: “Does the reader know from practical experiment that one season is better than another for applying outside paint?” I suppose the writer means the effect upon the wearing qualities of the paint and the permanency of the color. I have been experimenting for a practical solution of this question for my own satisfaction and guidance, and have come to the conclusion that paint put on the outside in the hot weather of summer will wear as well and hold its color as long as paint put on in the cooler days of spring and fall. I know the idea that paint dries too fast in hot weather is almost universal, but I think it grows largely from the fact that a quick-drying paint is not as good for outside as a slow dryer; but you must remember that there is a great difference between a quick-drying paint and drying a slow paint as quickly as the ingredients will admit of. Linseed oil dries or hardens by absorbing oxygen from the air, and that process goes on more rapidly in hot weather than in cool weather, because the air in hot weather is in a condition more freely to part with its oxygen, or because the oil is in a better condition to receive it, or both. In other words, a warm atmosphere hastens the process of absorption and a cool air retards it, but in either case the result is the same: the air gives up enough of its oxygen to solidify the oil. Now, the question arises, can any difference be discovered (chemical or otherwise) in the composition of the paint, whether dried in warm or cool air? From a business-point of view, I have long advocated summer as a good time to paint outside, and have usually succeeded in converting customers to my views upon the subject, and as a consequence have not often had a dull time in midsummer. We painters in the country know how unpleasant and unprofitable it is to have all the work of the year rushed upon us in the spring and fall, and I think if painters generally could convince themselves by practical experiment that, all things considered, summer time is the best season of the year to do outside work, and advocate the same to their customers, backed by argument and practical illustration, there would soon be less need of complaint about a dull season in midsummer.