The Medical Summary recommends the external use of buttermilk to ladies who are exposed to tan or freckles.
WHAT CAUSES PAINT TO BLISTER AND PEEL?
HOW TO PREVENT IT.
This subject has been treated by many, but out of the numerous ideas that have been brought to bear upon it, the writers have failed to elucidate the question fully, probably owing to the fact that in most parts they were themselves dubious as to the real cause. Last year W.S. gave a lengthy description in the Building News, in which he classified blistering and peeling of paint into one of blistering only. He stated in the beginning of his treatise the following:
"The subject of blistering of paint has from time to time engrossed the attention of practical men; but so far as we can follow it in the literature pertaining to the building trade, its cause has never been clearly laid down, and hence it is a detail enshrouded in mystery."
W.S. dwells mostly, in his following explanations on blistering paints, on steam raised in damp wood. Also an English painter, according to the Painters' Journal, lately reiterates the same theory, and gives sundry reasons how water will get into wood through paint, but is oblivious that the channels which lead water into wood are open to let it out again. He lays great stress on boiled oil holding water in suspense to cause blistering, which is merely a conjecture. Water boils at 212° F. and linseed oil at 600° F., consequently no water can possibly remain after boiling, and a drop of water put into boiling oil would cause an explosion too dangerous to be encountered.
It will be shown herewith that boiled oil, though in general use, is unfit for durable painting, that it is the cause of most of the troubles painters have to contend with, and that raw linseed oil seasoned by age is the only source to bind pigments for durable painting; but how to procure it is another trouble to overcome, as all our American raw linseed oil has been heated by the manufacturers, to qualify it for quick drying and an early market, thereby impairing its quality. After linseed oil has been boiled, it becomes a poor varnish; it remains soft and pliable when used in paint, giving way to air pressure from the wood in hot weather, forming blisters. Turpentine causes no blistering; it evaporates upon being exposed, and leaves the paint in a porous condition for the gas in the wood to escape; but all painters agree that blistering is caused by gas, and on investigation we find two main sources from which gas is generated to blister paint—one from the wood, the other from the ingredients of the paint. The first named source of gas is started in hot weather by expansion of air confined in painted wood, which presses against the paint and raises blisters when the paint is too soft to resist. Tough, well-cemented paint resists the pressure and keeps the air back. These blisters mostly subside as soon as the air cools and returns to the pores, but subsequently peel off.
W.S. and others assert that damp in painted wood turns into steam when exposed to sun heat, forming blisters, which cannot be possible when we know that water does not take a gaseous form (steam) at less than 212° F. They have very likely been deluded by the known way of distilling water with the aid of sunshine without concentrating the rays of the sun, based upon the solubility of water in air, viz.: Air holds more water in solution (or suspension) in a warmer than in a cooler degree of temperature; by means of a simple apparatus sun-heated air is guided over sun-heated water, when the air saturated with water is conducted into a cooler, to give up its water again. But water has an influence toward hastening to blister paint; it holds the unhardened woodsap in solution, forming a slight solvent of the oil, thereby loosening the paint from the wood, favoring blistering and peeling. There is a certain kind of blister which appears in certain spots or places only, and nowhere else, puzzling many painters. The explanation of this is the same as before—soft paint at these spots, caused by accident or sluggish workmen having saturated the wood with coal oil, wax, tar, grease, or any other paint-softening material before the wood was painted, which reacts on the paint to give way to air pressure, forming blisters.
The second cause of paint blistering from the ingredients of the paint happens between any layer of paint or varnish on wood, iron, stone, or any other substance. Its origin is the gaseous formation of volatile oils during the heated season, of which the lighter coal oils play the most conspicuous part; they being less valuable than all other volatile oils, are used in low priced japan driers and varnishes. These volatile oils take a gaseous form at different temperatures, lie partly dormant until the thermometer hovers at 90° F. in the shade, when they develop into gas, forming blisters in airtight paint, or escape unnoticed in porous paint. This is the reason why coal-tar paint is so liable to blister in hot weather; an elastic, soft coal-tar covering holds part of its volatile oil confined until heated to generate into gas; a few drops only of such oil is sufficient to spoil the best painted work, and worse, when it has been applied in priming, it settles into the pores of the wood, needing often from two to three repetitions of scraping and repainting before the evil is overcome. Now, inasmuch as soft drying paint is unfit to answer the purpose, it is equally as bad when paint too hard or brittle has been used, that does not expand and contract in harmony with the painted article, causing the paint to crack and peel off, which is always the case when either oil or varnish has been too sparingly and turpentine too freely used. Intense cold favors the action, when all paints become very brittle, a fact much to be seen on low-priced vehicles in winter time. Damp in wood will also hasten it, as stated in blistering, the woodsap undermining the paint.