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

CHAPTER XV.
CUTTER AND SLEIGH PAINTING: DECORATIVE ASPECTS OF THE WORK—THE VARIOUS PROCESSES OF PAINTING EMPLOYED—THE PREVAILING COLORS—STRIPING AND SCROLLING—REPAINTING, REVARNISHING, PROFITS TO BE REALIZED, ETC.

Cutter and sleigh painting are justly esteemed interesting parts of the art of vehicle painting. Coming at a time when the ordinary activities of vehicle painting are practically at a standstill, the cutter and sleigh painting business furnishes a medium for profits gleefully taken advantage of by the average factory and jobbing shop painter.

In one way, it must be confessed, this branch of painting has fallen off in attractiveness. The elaborate decorative effects once so largely in the full favor of fashion have been discarded, and many workmen competent to accomplish such effects have become lost in other pursuits. But in these days the painter should be prepared for any emergency; hence it is best that cutter and sleigh decorative work be given study, and skill to execute such work be kept in hand or acquired by practice. Now and then comes a call for a cutter or sleigh ornamented in the old-fashioned way with elaborate arm pieces, etc. The jobbing shop painter especially is very frequently confronted with opportunities for the practice of decorative painting in a variety of ways, and to fulfill his mission as an important community artisan he should be prepared to do the work. The very low prices paid for cutter and sleigh painting at the present time have proved an effective factor, no doubt, in considerably restricting the limitations of decorative painting. At the same time, there is every reason to believe that the conspicuous absence of fine decorative effects in cutter and sleigh painting is also due, to a large extent, to the inability of the average latter-day workman, located in provincial centres, to fittingly produce them. Upon the modern Portland style cutter elaborate ornamentation would perhaps be out of place; but upon many of the runner vehicles of ancient and honorable vintage, which the beauteous Belle of Fashion has decreed to be the proper thing, a generous measure of decorative work would be appropriate. Swell sleighs of more recent pattern take kindly to lavish ornamentation built upon rather delicate lines.

These conditions, therefore, warrant the painter who deeply desires to command profits and success in cutter and sleigh painting, in cultivating a ready skill and dexterity along the lines of ornamental work.

Fig. 1.

Surface perfections have grown to be important considerations in the economy of sleigh painting of the best grade. While none but the very finest class of cutters and sleighs are given surfaces rivalling in smoothness and quality those reflected by the best class of carriages, still, first-class surfacing remains a chief feature of sleigh painting, excepting at all times the seven-for-$100 vehicles. And in respect to this latter class of jobs, the results achieved in the way of surface effects are often surprising, due chiefly to the very heavy coats of varnish applied.

And here the reader may deem it pertinent to ask for a review of the systems and methods practiced in painting and finishing cutters and sleighs.