The carriage painter frequently has sign writing to do on glass and he requires a reliable size to enable him to get first-class leafing. Russian isinglass makes the best size, although it is often difficult to obtain from local merchants. To a pint of soft water add a piece of the isinglass 1/2 in. square and boil until the material is wholly dissolved. Then add a drop or two of alcohol, strain, and the size is ready for use. Gelatine, while largely used, should be used the day it is prepared as a size, otherwise it is not reliable in its action. Put a few shreds of the gelatine in a quart of water and boil until the water is reduced to a pint.
Vermilion is one of the highly-prized carriage painting pigments, and the best is none too good to meet the requirements of good work. To test the color, heat a small quantity in a porcelain vessel over an alcohol lamp. The adulterated vermilion, in burning, will leave a sediment either red, black, or perhaps white. The genuine quicksilver vermilion invariably proves fugitive when submitted to intense heat.
The refuse oil of pine or coal tar is a useful oil to keep upon the paint shop shelves. Suppose a borrowed brush or a brush neglected in some way about the shop is found dried up—hardened to a stone-like condition. Take a quantity of the pine or coal tar oil from its air-tight receptacle, where it should be kept to prevent evaporation, and in the liquid suspend the injured brush well up over the bristles. Three or four days' immersion will usually soften up a very much abused brush.
All colors that are apparently changed in purity of color when even the palest of varnishes are used over them, should have a little of the color used in each varnish coat up to the finishing coat of varnish. If striping or ornamenting is used do this work upon the last rubbing coat and then finish with the very palest varnish obtainable.
Bear in mind this fact, namely: Colors are divided into three cardinal degrees—light, medium, and dark. And the relative position of the base color governs the intermediate shades. In the mixing and use of colors it is also a wise policy to provide for the self-asserting property of the strongest or controlling color. If this is not done the distinctive character of the color sought for will not for long be retained.
A prime factor in finishing a carriage in natural wood consists in first thoroughly cleaning the wood and then keeping it clean. All stains and discolorations of the wood should be sandpapered out or scraped off with steel scraper and a piece of glass. Then a careful, uniform sandpapering should be given. Dust off and apply a coat of raw linseed oil. This oil coat requires a clean, smooth rubbing out—as clean and smooth as a coat of paint. Give this oil coat from 24 to 36 hours to dry and harden completely. Sandpaper lightly, dust off, and give the surface a coating of some reliable, first-class, wood filler. As soon as the filler takes on a sufficient "tack," rub across the grain of the wood with soft, clean rags until the surface is free from any surplus filler. If, after the application of the filler, the cells of the wood remain unfilled or defectively sealed, a second coat of the filler will be necessary. Once the filler has dried, mix a putty colored to match the natural color of the wood, and putty nail and screw holes and other cavities. This puttying should be done so smoothly as to necessitate little or no sandpapering for the purpose of leveling the putty spots. The whole surface may now in due time be lightly gone over with No. 0 paper. Next dust off and apply a coat of pale rubbing varnish. The striping is best done on this coat. Then give second coat of rubbing, surfacing this coat, when dry, with pulverized pumice stone and water, clean up most thoroughly, and finish with a very pale durable finishing varnish.
The painting of one of these natural-wood-finished jobs often presents a formidable problem. What is the best method to pursue? That cannot be answered decisively; but a reliable method is appended. First scrape and sandpaper the old varnish clean and sleek to the wood. If the wood is in good shape and not weather-beaten, apply a coat of lead containing no more oil than is carried in the keg lead as it comes from the dealer, the pigment being simply thinned with turpentine and given a drying agent in the shape of a teaspoonful of coach japan, to, say, each pint of the mixture. If the varnish has perished, and the wood is injured thereby, it is advisable to give the lead a little extra dash of oil, but not enough to cause the lead to dry with a gloss. Testing the lead on the finger nail will determine the question of gloss. When dry this coating of lead should receive a careful sandpapering, and a second coat of lead mixed to dry "dead," and laid with a camel's-hair brush, may go on. Too much oil should be especially avoided in building the lead foundation over these natural wood surfaces, as it must be borne in mind that the grain of the wood has been already sealed with a hard, non-absorbent material into which the usual first coat percentage of oil does not penetrate. On this second coat of lead all needed puttying is done. The sandpapering which follows should be very perfect and skillfully done. Body surfaces may next receive the needed roughstuff coating up, to be subsequently rubbed out and carried through to a finish in the ordinary way. The running parts from this lead coat foundation are colored and finished according to the accepted practice.
Once upon a time, my lamented friend, A. F. Manchester, in the columns of Varnish, asked this pertinent question: "Do you have trouble with your fine colors clouding up and losing their brilliancy from the varnish?" Replying to the query, he suggested this plan, to the efficacy of which the writer is glad to subscribe: "On any transparent color (or any color, in fact) always add some of the color to each coat of rubbing varnish—enough to kill the amber tint of the varnish. This preserves the colors in all their original brilliancy. Of course, this plan necessitates striping and ornamenting on the last coat of rubbing, but that is just as well as burying all the tone of the colors under the varnish. Then, again, it obliges the customer to have the job revarnished when he ought."
It is not a praiseworthy practice to putty a carriage body after it is rubbed out of roughstuff, or after the first coat of color is on. The puttying should be attended to when the job is being roughstuffed—and before. All places overlooked at the first puttying should be attended to carefully upon the first coat of roughstuff. Puttying upon a roughstuffed rubbed panel leads to premature surface blemishes of a most unhappy order.
Certain of the yellows are rather difficult to work nicely when used as striping colors for dagger or sword pencils. Notably so is chrome yellow, which, by the way, is a pretty foundation for glazing with carmine. Such colors may be remedied by adding a bit of some body color which will give them a stronger covering property without harmfully changing the purity of the yellow.