Wood-working for Beginners: A Manual for Amateurs

by Charles G. Wheeler

Look over the work for any knots or streaks of resinous or pitchy matter and wash them with a coat or two of shellac, to "kill" the turpentine and prevent its oozing through and spoiling the paint.

Try to mix enough, and only enough, paint for the coat you are about to put on, but do not mix a great quantity in advance with the idea of keeping it on hand.

The first coat should be thin rather than thick—with plenty of oil to saturate the wood. The oil will be quickly drawn into the wood, and you can readily see that the first coat should be thin to properly soak into the surface. If thick, the paint will not be sufficiently absorbed, but the oil will soak in quickly, leaving too much residue of the pigment on the outside. Work this first coat well into the wood. Take up but little paint, and draw the brush carefully over the edge of the pail,[49] or over a wire stretched across the top, to remove any superfluity of paint, and begin the painting at the highest part of the work, or the part farthest from you, to prevent spattering or dripping paint over the freshly covered surface. Begin, also, at one end or side of the surface, working toward the other end or side, drawing the brush back and forth both ways to distribute the paint as evenly and smoothly as possible, and try not to leave any part of a surface untouched until another time, or it will be likely to show a "lap" where you end and begin—that is, if you cannot cover the work entirely at one time, leave off where there is some natural line or break in the work. Finish the side or the end and do not leave off right in the middle of a flat surface. This does not matter quite so much in the priming, but will show plainly in the later coats.

After this coat has had time to dry thoroughly, carefully putty the holes and cracks. Remember never to use the putty until after at least one coat of paint has been applied and dried. The reason for this is that the fresh wood will quickly absorb the oil from the putty, leaving it dry and crumbly, while if a coat of paint has been put on first and dried, the wood will be already charged, so to speak; the pores will be more or less choked up and the bulk of the oil will remain in the putty.

Paint with the grain of the wood, or the long way of the work, using a large brush for large surfaces and finishing all corners, mouldings, and edges with a small brush. In doors or panel-work first paint the panels, then the rails, then the styles (see Fig. 505). You will thus follow the construction of the work and the grain of the wood, and where you daub the paint beyond the part you are painting (as you will have to do), the daub will be wiped out neatly when you paint the next part.

Paint joints in outside work, tenons and mortises, shoulders, etc., before putting together, with good white lead. It is not always customary to paint the hidden parts of joints before putting together, particularly in cheap work, but it is well to do so in all work which you wish to have endure, in all framework exposed to water and the weather, and in boat-building. Exposed work quickly decays at the joints and seams because the water and dampness collect in such places and do not run off or evaporate as readily as from a smooth surface, so the more you can protect these hidden parts with paint, the better, and the labour is but slight.

When you have paint left in the paint-pot which you wish to keep for use another time, pour just enough raw linseed oil over the top to cover it completely. This thin layer of oil will exclude the air and keep the paint from hardening. When you wish to use it again, pour off the oil or stir it into the paint, according to whether the latter requires more oil or not. When you get through painting, if you are going to do more in a short time, it will do to leave the brush in the paint, but do not leave it standing or resting on the bottom of the can, as that tends to bend the ends of the bristles and get the brush out of shape. Rig a wire hook on the handle and hang the brush so that the bristles will be covered by the paint, but without touching the bottom. If you are not going to use the brush again for some time, it should be cleaned and put away. Turpentine is often used, but kerosene answers every purpose. Be careful to wash out all the paint, however, as a very little left between the bristles will stick them together so as sometimes to ruin the brush. Another way to keep brushes which are in use is to hang them from the handles in a can partially filled with oil, the whole being kept covered. Water can be used instead of oil. Arrange it so that the hairs will be just covered.

The first coat especially should be given plenty of time to dry, for it is the foundation and basis of the whole operation and the firmness and durability of the painting depends much upon it.

Each succeeding coat should have plenty of time to dry before applying another, bearing in mind that applying a second coat, before the first is fully hard, excludes the air from the under layer of paint and causes it to dry much more slowly than if left exposed as it should be. In such cases, the outside surface may often seem to be dry and hard while the paint underneath remains comparatively soft. When the first layer finally does dry, the tendency is to crack the surface of the outside, which has dried first. You can find an extreme illustration of this point in some old paint and varnish shop where some convenient place on the wall has been taken against which to slap and work brushes. You can find daubs of old paint and varnish, sometimes an inch thick, made up in this way of hundreds of layers slapped on before the previous ones were dry, the inside remaining soft in some cases after twenty years.

Paint dries, as a rule, more quickly in a warm temperature than where it is cold, and more quickly where it is dry than where it is damp. So, if you are obliged to paint where it is cold or damp, you will be justified in using more dryer than where it is warm and dry.