Only a prophet of much temerity would attempt to bound the possibilities of business wagon painting. It may be allowable to define it as a limitless art, resourceful, restive, responsive to an admirable degree to the ever-varying side-lights of technical skill. All that art can be anywhere the broad surface of the modern business vehicle invitingly offers to display. The time when the main requirement of a business wagon was symmetry and strength of structure has gone by. The merchant, the man of business, has found it to possess a value beyond its mere capacity as a carrier of merchandise. Its worth as an advertising medium, as an agency through which business stability and enterprise may be widely heralded, has been fully learned. Thus the evolution of the present elaborately painted and decorated business wagon has come about. Is it not stating the truth too strongly to say that the average business man is now quite as exacting and peremptory about the style and appearance of his business wagon as he is of his much prized pleasure vehicle. He aims to have his painter achieve a distinct individuality in the painting of his (the business man's) vehicles, so that so-and-so's delivery wagons are readily distinguished from all others met with along the highways and by-ways. To this end he not only seeks to have his vehicles so painted and decorated that unsurpassed advertising effects are commanded, but he also makes careful selection of a combination of colors, and strictly adheres to that combination throughout the list of his business vehicle equipment. This manifestation of exclusiveness on the part of business men has created a spirit of rivalry that has greatly redounded to the painter's benefit in that more beautiful and dashing color effects are now in vastly greater demand than formerly.
And the gratifying aspect of the case is that these original and artistic styles of painting the business vehicle bid fair to continue in popularity. It furnishes the wagon painter, and most especially the apprentice in the wagon paint shop, an incentive to excel in this branch of painting.
The reader may here note, perhaps, an inclination to separate wagon painting, which we have in preceding chapters treated as an inclusive feature of vehicle painting in its broad interpretation, from other branches of the painting art. Necessarily, in the small provincial jobbing paint shop it is all grist that comes to the hopper; consequently carriage and wagon painting are judiciously included under one head. In the city establishment, however, an abrupt division is made, and we find business wagon painting practiced as a specialty—reduced to a fine art. Many argumentative discussions have been conducted by specialists in the two branches to prove the superior skill required in one branch as against the other, and a wide diversity of opinion remains prevalent as to which side has the best of the controversy.
Certain it is, at any rate, that the exactions of fine wagon painting are at present very pronounced. Granting that elegant general effects take precedence over all other features of wagon painting, the fact remains that the quality of the surface must be carefully looked after. It is seldom needful to obtain as fine and satiny a surface as is required on the panel of the jaunty brougham or the luxurious landau, the color scheme employed, united with dignified and artistic ornamentation, being depended upon as the irresistable attraction. However, this statement is not intended to belittle the importance of the surfacing system. Upon the finest class of business wagons it is a common experience to observe surfaces which in point of smoothness and general excellence are second only to those observable upon heavy pleasure carriages of the finest class.
The wagon painter is confronted by many difficulties concerning which the carriage painter pure and simple, knows little. He must know well how to build beautiful and durable surfaces. He should be a first-class colorist, understanding all the features of color mixing and fully conversant with the laws of harmony and contrast. He will likewise find it necessary to be an unexcelled master of the varnish brush, a skilled striper, wagon letterer, and decorative painter of established ability. The chief disadvantage under which the wagon painter labors is presented to him through the agency of the many lead-weighted colors which he is usually compelled to employ. Many of the light colors extensively used in wagon painting at this time contain keg lead, or lead of another form, as the main ingredient. In doing jobs with light colors containing much lead, roughstuff is not generally used, the lead medium being relied upon to furnish a sufficiently smooth, compact, and close-textured surface; and naturally, therefore, this surface is freely flexible and elastic. Amid the stress and strife of competition and swift processes, these coats are often crowded on so fast that reliable drying is not assured, and then to lend additional uncertainty to the outcome of the work, rather quick and fairly unelastic varnish coats are employed, so that at the completion of the work a thread of weakness gleams through the whole paint and varnish structure. Surface building fallacies of this nature the wagon painter is forced to contend with, and his ability to surmount them is repeatedly shackled by rigid contrary decisions coming from the business office. By this token, then, it is plain beyond the need of further demonstration, that wagon painting is an art that bespeaks for its successful practice technical knowledge and skill of a high order. Its varied phases, none of which are uninteresting and most of which are really fascinating, invite study, and the cultivation of talents, both artistic and mechanical, not required in any other recognized branch of painting. Probably the
PAINTING OF A FULL-PANELED TOP BUSINESS WAGON
offers more difficulties than any other style of wagon. The workman first proceeds to clean off all the grease smears, and then takes full care to get the job thoroughly sandpapered. Then prime job throughout, running parts and body inside and out, top, bottom, etc. If the job is to be painted in dark colors use the priming formula No. 1, given in [Chapter III]. of this series, and if light colors are desired prime with white (keg) lead thinned to working consistency with raw linseed oil, tempered as to drying with a teaspoonful of japan to each pint of the primer. If no time limit intervenes omit the japan. The running parts, in due time, are next given careful sandpapering, and then rub lead, as fully detailed in [Chapter III]., is applied. The body receives sandpapering and a lead coat adapted to the final color, mixed, if the job is to go roughstuffed, with 3/8 oil to 5/8 turpentine, half and half. Apply to inside as well as outside of body and top, then when these applied mixtures are dry, putty, using as mixture ingredients dry white lead, 3 parts; keg lead, 1 part; and rubbing varnish and japan, equal parts.
For the running parts, if to be painted in light colors, use the next coat of pigment mixed to a brushing consistency with a trifle less than 3/8 oil and a corresponding increase over 5/8 turpentine. Thus gradually reduce the percentage of oil as the final color is approached. In case dark colors are to prevail, apply over the red lead a coat of lead pigment carrying a firm binder of oil, say one-sixteenth.
Upon the body, if it is to be painted in dark colors, next apply four coats of roughstuff, choosing from among the formulas given in [Chapter III]. one suited to the time allowance to be reckoned with. If light colors are to be used, and stuff coats tabooed, all the open, coarse-grained sweeps of the surface require an application of knifing lead (again refer to [Chapter III].) put on with a bristle brush and then pressed into the minute wood orifices with a broad blade putty knife. Then in the next coat of pigment, colored fittingly to meet the final color, reduce the oil to the proportion of one-fourth oil to three-fourths turpentine. In the next coat which will have practically a full percentage of the desired color the quantity of oil used, as compared to that contained in the preceding coat, should be cut in twain. The next reduction should bring the pigment down to possessing simply a good binder of oil. Then, in easy procession, follow the final color coat, color-and-varnish, if the system permits it, clear rubbing, and finishing.
On large top paneled jobs, however, when strictly high class results are desired, it will be quite necessary, regardless of the colors employed, to employ roughstuff as the body surfacing agent. The surface is brought up to the roughstuff stage as above advised, and then, in case of a white job, resort is had to the white roughstuff, formulas for mixing which will be found in [Chapter V]. of this work. The colors used over the stuff coats are either japan ground or washed with benzine to free them as much as possible of the oil carried.