Practical Carriage and Wagon Painting / A Treatise on the Painting of Carriages, Wagons and Sleighs, Embracing Full and Explicit Directions for Executing All Kinds of Work, Including Painting Factory Work, Lettering, Scrolling, Ornamenting, Varnishing, etc., with Many Tested Recipes and Formulas

by M. C. Hillick

The primary colors have no established hues, tints, or shades, but in every compound of the primaries a hue is recognizable. Green, for instance, as a compound of blue and yellow, can be made to vary surprisingly in hue as the proportion of one primary is increased and the other reduced, and vice versa.

In every compound of the primaries the predominating primary fixes the hue thereof. Hue, then, as an authority has well said, may be "a mixture of two or more colors of any order, but the mixture should not depart from the original color."

Tone, as applied to a color, measures the depth of the hue of that color.

Dilute a color, or the hue thereof, with white, and a tint of that color or hue is the result. To illustrate: By adding white to chrome yellow, the yellow is reduced along down through the long lists of tints until it reaches white.

A color or hue deepened by the addition of black becomes a shade of that color or hue; or, in other words, a shade is any color made deeper by the addition of black. The positive colors contain no white or black by mixture, while the negative colors do contain white or black or both.

THE MIXING OF COLORS,

in view of the fact that the manufacture of them has now reached a very high state of perfection, would seem to be a comparatively easy matter, but it must be understood that in vehicle painting, business vehicle painting especially, there are many hues, tints, and shades demanded which the color maker does not furnish. Such mixtures have to be prepared by the painter, and the work becomes a skilled operation. First he must be fortified with a clear knowledge of the proportions of the ingredients required to form the desired color or hue thereof, or tint or shade. Then he must skillfully and perfectly combine them. The word "perfectly" is emphasized because if the constituents be not perfectly combined, a long train of evils is invited. A most minute and perfect incorporation of all the particles of the paint material must be made, otherwise a lack of uniformity in strength, coloring, and covering power results. Certain colors have a property of unduly asserting themselves when combined with certain other colors in the mixing cup, and if allowance be not made for this assertive strength and a very thorough mixture of the parts effected, the color, when applied to the surface, is apt to show streaks. Some pigments require grinding upon the slab under the muller to obtain an absolutely perfect commingling of the particles.

This rule applies to the mixing of pigments: The more perfect the mixing, the more perfect the product; perfect not only as regards its strength, permanence, and brilliancy of color, but perfect also as regards its working properties.

While two or more pigments may mix nicely together, they may not liquify readily, and unless the workman be thorough in his mixing operations, lack of a uniform film of color ensues, a condition which later on develops the faded and bleached out surface, and in many instances the flaking and shelly one. The painter who would become a skilled mixer of pigment will insist upon exact quantitative measurements of all the ingredients he may employ, both liquids and solids, when such measurements are possible, and he will further see that the ingredients are perfectly united.

The attainment of a high average of results in the use of colors depends greatly upon the achievements of the color maker and upon the uniform quality of his product. Fineness of grinding, uniformity of color in respect to its coloring and covering power, and brilliancy, are valued essentials. It is necessary that the painter should get from the color maker not one, two, or three successive lots of color that are of standard color, tint, or shade, but every lot should correspond to the exact standard. When the painter opens a new lot of color, he desires it to be exactly like the last in every particular, provided, of course, the last lot was standard. Hence, uniformity of color, of tint, of shade, of quality throughout, is a requirement with which the color maker may properly be expected to comply. It will thus be observed that the purchase of colors is one of the really important steps leading up to fine and durable color effects.