In some shops the roughstuff is discarded altogether, the wood filler being filled over with a couple of lead coats, the first coat containing an oil binder and the second one containing no oil at all. This lead foundation is surfaced down with sandpaper, dusted off, and a wash of quick hard drying rubbing varnish, thinned down about one-half with turpentine, given. The surface is then finished out in the usual way. The running parts are treated as described in the liquid wood filler process previously given.
Fig. 5.
The anti-kalsomine system concerning which considerable discussion was had somewhat recently amounts to this: The jobs are primed throughout with oil, yellow ochre, and perhaps a little lead. The bodies are then taken in hand and all necessary puttying done. The anti-kalsomine, the fixer or binder of which is cement, is next mixed to a working consistency with hot water and applied hot. It is best to allow the first coat of kalsomine to stand over night before being recoated, although in the factory system three or four coats of the cement, always applied hot, are put on per day. Then a liquid mixture of oil, japan, and turpentine, in the proportion of two parts of oil to three parts of japan, and one part of turpentine, is flowed over the kalsomine foundation. This liquid wash serves to weld or amalgamate the cement with the priming coat. The sandpapering of these anti-kalsomine foundations is one of the principal draw-backs to the use of the cement. It sets in motion flotillas of dust, stifling and suffocating to an extreme. It has been noted, however, that this anti-kalsomine treatment has furnished some fine wearing and very durable surfaces.
Fig. 6.
The carriage painter in practicing his trade as it applies exclusively to carriages is confined to a comparatively few colors, but in devoting his skill to cutter and sleigh work an extended variety of colors may be used. Artistic instincts are in good demand in the cutter and sleigh painting business. Possibilities for the harmonious combination of colors exist here to an extent not known of in the other branches of painting. Colors sombre and gay; emblematic of this, that, or the other thing; old-fashioned as the days of witch burning or as modern and up-to-date as the '97 color grinder can make them, are all alike acceptable in the sight of the people who love a sleigh ride. Some painters have a great liking for siennas and umbers as body colors for sleigh work. Toned down some they do gleam very showily under varnish. Such colors striped with aluminum or gold and edged with a fine line of red give a strikingly handsome effect, especially if the running parts are painted in some one of the beautiful light reds at present available; or a lighter shade of the body color can be advantageously employed upon the running parts. Perhaps the lighter styles of cutters, speeding cutters, for example, take more kindly to the light and showy reds as running-parts colors than do the vehicles of heavier build, but all styles, nevertheless, permit of brilliant color effects in the treatment of running parts. For a light track or speeding cutter, color the side and back panels medium ultramarine blue; the dash, carmine; running parts, a very light carmine. Stripe the panels, 1/4 inch line of gold with a fine line of carmine. The dash and running parts may be displayed with striping of black and gold. Portland cutters for ordinary service show handsomely with the body panels done in ultramarine blue, moldings blacked, with the running parts done in the lightest shades of the ultramarine blue, the job then striped throughout with a primrose yellow stripe. Or again, these cutters are painted deep carmine throughout the body, with light carmine running parts. The striping on body consists of 1/8 inch line of black, and 3/8 inch inside of that is flashed a fine gold line. A Portland amber color for the body, with a lighter shade of the same color for the running-parts, looks fetching, notably so when the body panels are striped with double lines of carmine, the ornamental corner pieces being done in carmine of a lighter shade. The running parts may get a single 1/8 inch line of carmine. Then one can see in the cutter and sleigh centres Portlands done in ashen-grey, canary and lemon yellow, etc.
One of the largest cutter and sleigh factories in this country has this year abandoned the double fine line style of striping so greatly in evidence for several years past, using instead, as a rule, a 1/8-inch carmine stripe—obtained by glazing carmine over a yellow base—with a distance fine line of gold running inside of it. At this establishment one can see a jaunty Portland painted pure white, with the body striped a 1/8-inch blue line with a distance fine line of red. Here also are to be seen beautiful amber browns, charming greens, elegant yellows of the primrose, orange, canary order and extending down to the delicate cream colors. But, on the whole, those cutter and sleigh builders and painters who cater to the worshipers at Fashion's shrine show a determination to adhere to the dark rich colors, such as browns, greens, and blacks, for panel work. Cutters with running parts painted in colors different from those used upon the bodies are not so much in evidence as formerly. Where the dark colors promise to remain in high favor with a large class of the very exclusive folk for some years to come, no strict adherence to such colors may be expected on the part of the general cutter-and-sleigh-using public.
STRIPING, CORNER PIECES, SCROLLS, ETC.
In the striping of cutters and sleighs the real basis of success is a judicious selection of colors. It has been a common saying in factory circles that anything in the way of colors, hit or miss, goes in sleigh painting when the ornamenting is reached. But this should not be so; in point of fact, it is not so in those establishments doing a good class of work. A riotous jumble of colors thrown into a fine line corner piece or scroll is an abominable exhibition of bad taste. There is nothing, we dare say, that so completely stamps the cheap cutter or sleigh with a glaring badge of cheapness as the ornament constructed from an inharmonious selection of colors and dotted to beat a Baxter St. vest lining. The dotter has no business striping or ornamenting the modern cutter or sleigh. The ornamental features of sleigh work need to be of a very high order of excellence. Otherwise it fails to correspond to the quality of finish which now obtains in all first-class establishments where sleigh work is carried on. In this connection the reader's attention is directed to examples of fine line ornaments adapted to Portland cutters and sleighs; also to examples of the bold, handsome relief scrolls once so extensively used, and which show so beautifully upon cutters and sleighs of the swell body pattern.