When a cutter or sleigh comes in for a thorough repainting, examine the vehicle closely and if the body can be removed without too large an expenditure of labor, removal should be insisted upon. There is usually considerable dirt under the edges of a cutter body that cannot be cleaned out except the body be taken off. And a little of this dirt caught up in the paint or varnish brush worketh evil to the whole job. Moreover, the brushes brought in contact with such accumulations of dirt are unfitted to produce pleasing results in the immediate future. The touch-up-and-varnish sleigh job is, in the main, a troublesome affair, especially the running parts. The merry and pretty colors which chiefly obtain on sleigh running parts painted in former years are not so easily matched as the colors used upon the bodies. In point of fact, it doesn't pay to devote much time in trying for a match. Instead, mix a color to about the shade of the old color and go over the running parts entire. Then restripe and finish, and in the great majority of cases money will be saved thereby. In rubbing cutter or sleigh work furnished with heavy moldings out of varnish, use, for surfacing such moldings, any varnish brush of a small pattern worn to a stub. Cutting through on the edges of the moldings is nicely avoided in this way. For the large panels on sleigh work a 3-inch finishing brush will serve as the best tool. It carries a greater quantity of varnish and enables the finisher to coat the surface quicker than he could do with the smaller brush. In finishing the quick and adroit placing of the varnish is an item of chief importance.
During the sleigh season there usually drifts into the jobbing paint shop a lot of not very particular work. As for example, heavy work, sleighs, bobs, etc. Upon such work there may be used the accumulated odds and ends of colors of various shades, hues, and tints, left over from doing sleigh work of a better class and from carriage work. Some very neat combinations may be effected by the judicious employment of these left-over bits of color, and it helps to slick up and put into profitable use certain materials which otherwise might eventually find their way into that quagmire of the paint shop—the slush keg. Briefly stated, cutter and sleigh painting opens the way for the employment of considerable material which cannot be termed strictly "available" in the other branches of painting; it comes at a time when the painter is better able to appreciate a lean loaf than a fat icicle; and if conducted according to business-like and workman-like practices it will supply a handsome source of profits.
CHAPTER XVI.
LEAVES FROM THE PAINT SHOP DIARY—PERTINENT POINTS ON PRACTICAL MATTERS—BLENDING OF COLORS—SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION—PAINTING IN SILVER BRONZE—THE FRENCH PAINTERS' VARNISH ROOM—REMEDY FOR RUSTED CARRIAGE SPRINGS—PAINTING METALLIC SURFACES—THINNING VARNISH—ETC.
At best the carriage painter's existence is somewhat hazardous, his every-day scene of toil being well laden with poisonous fumes and fetid exhalations. In the painting of a hearse, ambulance, or "dead wagon" the precaution of disinfecting the vehicle most thoroughly should be taken. Carbolic acid, carbonate of lime, or, if one prefers, numerous ready prepared disinfectants of penetrating composition may be used generously. Prudence dictates the policy of refusing to take any chances when working in and about a vehicle possibly afflicted with the germs of some deadly contagious disease.
It is not always an easy matter to clean the glasses in heavy coach work unless special methods are practiced. Here is a quick way of cleaning besmeared glasses of the kind named. Saturate a soft sponge with wood alcohol and wipe over both sides of the glass. If perchance varnish or paint accumulations are in evidence the alcohol softens them and a quick runaround with a keen-edged putty knife removes them. If a careless or incompetent workman has badly bedaubed a glass, coat the daubs with oxalic acid. The action of this powerful liquid will very briefly soften up the accumulations so that the putty knife will nicely slick them off. Then give a rub over with an alcohol-charged sponge, this to be immediately followed by a smart polish with the chamois skin. If a still better polish is desired, take a newspaper, roll it into a shape that will permit rubbing the glass without bringing the fingers in contact with the surface, and then dipping the paper into dry lampblack proceed to burnish both sides of the glass.
The blending of colors has lately become an important feature of the carriage painter's art. This was at one time considered purely a matter of business belonging to the artist, but it is not now so regarded. Artistic, and therefore harmonious, color blending consists in preserving the individuality of each color employed, while at the same time there is an almost unconscious merging of one color into another. No distinctive lines are allowed to disturb the harmony of the work. The carriage color blender, like his brother artist of the palette and three-story studio, aims to obtain a thorough incorporation of all the different shades of color employed upon a certain piece of work so that the blending from light lo dark may be made without resorting to any glaring contrasts. The blending is accomplished while the colors are wet, the ground being laid first in the lighter colors, then working in the darker shades until the darkest desired shade is reached. Great care is necessarily expended upon the tools, etc. A color-clogged brush need not be expected to do good blending service. No arbitrary rules can be given within which to confine the work of blending—it is too closely allied to art for that. Supremely necessary aids to success in this field of work consist of plenty of practice taken in connection with intelligent study of outline, harmony, and contrasts.
If it is desirable to varnish a job of gilding the same day the leaf is laid, and it is feared that the leaf will brush mark, it is a good plan to give the gold a light coat of thin shellac, going over the work very quickly. The shellac will protect the leaf without in any way harming it.
One hears a good deal concerning spontaneous combustion. The craft would be less familiar with the term if the following rule, rigidly enforced in some shops, were lived up to in letter and spirit: Greasy rags must be burned up immediately, and not, under any consideration, allowed to remain in the shop one moment after their use is finished. Any violation of this order will result in immediate dismissal.