Hints for painters, decorators, and paper-hangers. / Being a selection of useful rules, data, memoranda, methods, and suggestions for house, ship and furniture painting, paper-hanging, gilding, color mixing, and other matters useful and instructive to painters and decorators. Prepared with special reference to the wants of amateurs

by An Old Hand

For outside old work exposed to the sun, both coats should contain one pint of turpentine and four pints of boiled oil, the remaining ingredients being as stated in the foregoing table. The extra turpentine is used to prevent blistering.

In cold weather more turpentine should be used to make the paint flow freely.

Operations.—All priming should be rubbed out as far as possible, for if it is flowed out loosely or laid on thick it will be apt to blister and run. In priming over spots, however, where patching is being done, it may sometimes be necessary to leave the coat thick or heavy, for new work can never be re-touched and look well, after the work is second coated or finished; for such re-touching would show and spoil the whole work. In priming the paint should flow easily, and the brush should be pressed on to the wood so that the paint will be forced into the pores. In all cases it is a great saving of time to cover as large a surface as convenient before smoothing or finishing off. All work on the same surface should be finished at the one application, if possible, for “laps”—which form the junctions of work done at different times—should be avoided wherever they can, as they are sure to disfigure the work where they exist. Of course, it is sometimes impossible to avoid laps, but where they must occur, care should be taken to make the connection with as little “lap” as possible or it will be certain to show through the work when finished. The defect, if occurring during the second coating, will show much worse than in the priming coat.

In painting, like everything else, a system must be followed to make much headway. Experience, perhaps, is the only effective teacher in this matter; and any rules laid down by us will have but little effect, if the operator does not, or can not systematize. The workman who follows a system will do nearly twice as much work with less labor, than the man who works only by the rule of thumb. In painting blinds, lattices, railings, cut brackets or other similar work, some method of operation should be adopted. A little observation on the part of the operator, will soon teach him the best methods to adopt in doing any particular kind of work.

Preparing the Work.—In preparing work for painting, too much care cannot be exercised, as succeeding coats and the final result depend very much on the proper condition of the work when the priming coat is applied. First, all the rough places in the wood should be rubbed down with a block covered with sandpaper; and the mouldings and beads should be well cleaned out with sandpaper. Then (and this is a matter of prime importance) every knot, however small, every indication of sap on the wood, or discoloration of any kind, and every appearance of pitch or gum, should be carefully varnished over with white shellac varnish, if the work is to be finished in white or light tints—or with varnish made from unbleached or common shellac, if the work is to be finished in dark shades. The common shellac, in the latter case, answers equally well with the bleached article, and at less cost. This should not, under any circumstances, be neglected, as it is impossible, in the nature of things, otherwise to make good work.

When work is to be finished with two coats, the putty used for stopping the nail-heads and other indentations should be made of white lead, worked up with common whiting to the proper consistency, and the filling should be done after the first coat shall have become well dried. When more than two coats are to be applied, the filling should be done between the first and second coats, with ordinary pure linseed-oil putty.

It should be adopted as a rule, never to apply pure white as a priming coat; no matter whether the work is to be finished with one or four coats, the result will always be more satisfactory if the first coat be stained. A little finely-ground lampblack answers as well for this as anything.

The only way to produce solid, uniform work, is by making every succeeding coat lighter in tint than the one which preceded it. This is especially the case with walls, and other extended flat surfaces. No matter what the finish is to be, the first coat should always be darker than the one which succeeds it; and the darker the shade of the finishing coat, the more important it is that this rule should be observed. If the work is to be finished with black, prime with black. If with green, let that be the color of all the preceding coats. If with blue, let that color be the ground work. What can be more stupid than applying to work which is to be finished in imitation of black walnut a priming coat of white? All work should be primed especially with regard to the finishing color.

There is not half enough of dark colors used in priming applications. Venetian red, finely ground in boiled oil, deeply stained with black—and used very thin, in order to stain the wood as much as possible—is the best first coat for work which is to be finished in imitation of black walnut or other dark wood. The succeeding coats should be as dark as may be with a view to the proper shade of ground-work for the graining. In such case, if (as must happen in the ordinary course of events) the work becomes bruised or “chipped”—by an accidental knock from a chair leg or other article of house furniture—the general appearance of it is little impaired thereby. Quite the contrary, however, is the case if the underneath coats are white. Then, an accident of the kind before mentioned, shows a white spot, which staringly proclaims the work to be a delusion and a sham. Dark colors, too, as the Venetian red before mentioned, make better foundations than white lead or zinc. They dry harder and “rub” better, and, what is most important, cost less.

This matter having been duly considered, let us now proceed to the coats succeeding the first. Before applying a second coat, the first should be carefully rubbed, and all the nail-heads and other indentations carefully stopped with pure linseed-oil putty—using for flat surfaces a square-bladed putty-knife. Puttying with the fingers should never be tolerated (good work is now the subject under consideration). This done, the whole should be carefully examined to ascertain if the oil in the former coat shall have revealed any resinous or pitchy spots, not previously covered with the shellac. These preliminaries being attended to, the work may be considered ready for a second coat. The directions as to rubbing with sandpaper are to be observed in all the succeeding coats. As a rule, on interior work, paint should never be applied to a surface which has not been previously rubbed.