A practical treatise on coach-building historical and descriptive

by James W. Burgess

Success depends in a great measure on the knowledge of the business engaged in, the proper application of industry to the materials required, frugality, promptness in meeting engagements, and good moral character.

In no occupation are the above qualities more essential than that of the manufacture of carriages, yet how few out of the whole number who claim to be carriage-makers have a good general knowledge of the business. Four distinct branches have to be looked after—woodwork, blacksmithing, painting, and trimming. The materials used by the respective branches are entirely dissimilar and costly, and require the utmost vigilance on the part of the proprietor to see that there is no unnecessary waste.

We shall close this chapter with the following remarks on “Taste” from W. Bridges Adams’s valuable book on “English Pleasure Carriages:”—

“There is a notion prevalent amongst uninstructed people that the quality called taste is a peculiar gift which an individual is endowed with at birth, and which cannot be acquired by any amount of application. Some portion of this belief is founded on reason, inasmuch as the physical faculties of some individuals at their birth are more perfect than those of others. Some are born with weak and some with strong eyes, and the same difference may exist in the perceptive faculties generally, on which faculties the quality of taste must depend. But even as weak eyes may be strengthened by judicious treatment, and strong eyes may be weakened by injudicious treatment, so inferior perceptive faculties may be improved by cultivation, and those which might have been first-rate may disappear by neglect. Even in those nations where the germs of taste are developed in but few individuals, where the mass of the community cannot discover beauty for themselves, they are yet susceptible of its influence when it is placed before them by others.

“Taste may be considered as another word for truth or proportion, both morally and physically. Much false taste exists in the community, and always has existed, but the total amount is continually lessening. The reason of the false taste is the imitative nature of man, which in an uncultivated state follows without examining. But even as it is the nature of water to attain a state of rest after violent oscillation, so it is the tendency of truth and proportion to grow out of the chaos of either thought or matter.

“Carriages constructed for the purposes of pleasure are works of art, in which taste may be widely developed in form, colour, and proportion, but the former is of course subservient to the mechanical construction. The hitherto defective mechanism of carriages, in which ‘a large wheel is made to follow a small one,’ has to a great extent destroyed proportion, and given a general license to all kinds of heterogeneous devices and barbarous ornaments, as if to overlay defects which there were no apparent means of obviating. Custom has reconciled the public to this discrepancy, which, were it now to appear for the first time, would excite universal distaste and ridicule.

“In an ordinary coach the side form of the body is composed of elliptic lines, from which the supporting iron brackets or loops are continued into reversed curves. This contrivance keeps the centre of gravity low. The four C springs from which the body is suspended are each, or ought to be, two-thirds of a circle, with a tangent to it to form a base or support. The perch beneath the body, which connects together the framework supporting the spring, is curved into a serpentine line corresponding to the bottom of the body and the loops; and thus an agreeable form is preserved. But the double framework in front and the unequal wheels entirely discompose the whole effect, and from an art point of view it is extremely disproportioned, and consequently unsightly.

“Now the manufacturer possessing taste steps in, and by lightening the heavy parts by beading, carving, &c., fine lines of colour, and the arrangement of the hammercloth, redeems the vehicle from positive ugliness, and produces a work of art by the harmony of the various curves as a whole, though to produce this harmony there are no well-ascertained rules. Therefore it is that the builder who possesses taste produces combinations pleasing to the eye, and he who is without taste produces unsightly works, which he is necessarily obliged to sell at a low rate of profit as mere articles of convenience, not of refinement. And even as articles of convenience they are imperfect, inasmuch as the harmony of form arises from the due proportion of parts to each other, and that very proportion produces a greater amount of convenience. The size and weight of a carriage ought to be proportioned to that of the horse or horses intended to draw it, as well as the locality in which it is to be used and the persons who are likely to use it; and the proportion of parts having once been accurately settled, the same rule of proportion must be observed, whether on an increasing or diminishing scale.

“After settling on the preliminary of form, the next consideration is that of colour. Taste in the latter can do much towards amending defects in the former, or at least can divert the attention of ordinary observers from dwelling upon them. Certain colours produce their effect by contrast, as green and red, purple and yellow, orange and blue, &c.; others produce their effect by harmony, as green and drab, or brown and amber; others again by gradation, as the differing shades of green and brown in almost endless variety. Colours are divided into two chief classes, the warm and the cold. Red and yellow and their varying gradations are warm colours. Green and blue and their varying gradations are cold colours. The intermingling of opposite colours produces neutrals. In choosing the colour for a carriage, it should be considered whether durability or appearance is the first consideration. For this country the warm colours are the most appropriate, as we hardly have enough of summer weather to render the adoption of cold colours general, except to such people as can afford carriages for each different season. The richest looking colours are not those which wear the best as a rule; but as an exception to this the yellows, which are both rich and showy, are amongst the most durable colours. For bright sunny days the straw, or sulphur yellow, is very brilliant and beautiful. Dark greens have a very rich appearance, but they do not wear well, the slightest specks being magnified by the dark surface. The olive greens are preferable, more especially for the summer, as they show the dust less, and are very good wearing colours. The shades of brown are even more numerous than those of the greens, and equally durable, though some of the lighter shades have a rather unpleasing effect, far too homely for varnish. Some of the darker browns become exceedingly rich with the admixture of a reddish tint, from the first faint tint up to the deep beautiful chocolate colour, the intermediate shades between which and a decided lake afford perhaps the very richest ground colours used in carriage-painting. Blues were formerly a great deal used to contrast with a red carriage part and framework. Very dark blues are now often used, but they soon become worn and faded, the least speck of dust disfiguring them. Drabs are scarcely ever used for body painting, though for some peculiar purposes they might be advantageously applied.

“In addition to the ground colour other colours are used to relieve it, the framework of the body being generally painted black; and in the case of a very dark colour being used for the ground, it becomes necessary to run a fine line of a lighter shade in order to mark the inner edges of the framework. The same process is applied to the carriage parts and under framework for the purpose of making it look lighter to the eye. Were the perch, beds, and wheels painted of one colour they would look exceedingly heavy and clumsy; but the skilful management of the fine lines, or ‘picking out,’ as it is technically called, produces a pleasing optical illusion. The same effect is sought also in the carved work, which would look very bare were it not heightened and brought into relief by the judicious application of black and coloured lines. Heraldic bearings used to be painted very large on the panels; in fact they formed the principal ornament, as they were painted in their proper heraldic colours. With bright grounds, such as yellow, the effect is often very good, but with most other colours it destroys the general harmony, and on this account it has been the custom of late years to paint them very small, and very often of the same colour as the ground, only lightened up to give relief. This is of course the other extreme.