The Harrington Rotary Engine Company, 123 Clinton Street, Chicago, are the owners and manufacturers.
In a can of peas sold in Liverpool recently the public analyst found two grains of crystallized sulphate of copper, a quantity sufficient to injuriously affect human health. The defendant urged that the public insisted upon having green peas; and that artificial means had to be resorted to to secure the required color.
TESTING CAR VARNISHES.
By D.D. ROBERTSON.
At the Master Car-Painters' Convention, D.D. Robertson, of the Michigan Central, read the following paper on the best method of testing varnishes to secure the most satisfactory results as to their durability, giving practical suggestions as to the time a car may safely remain in the service before being taken in for revarnishing:
The subject which the association has assigned to me for this convention has always been regarded as important. There is no branch of the business which gives the painter more anxiety than the varnishing department. It is more susceptible to an endless variety of difficulties, and therefore needs more close and careful attention, than all other branches put together, and even with all the research and practical experience which has been given to the subject we are yet far from coming to a definite conclusion as to the causes of many of the unfavorable results.
Beauty and durability are what we aim at in the paint shop, and from my experience in varnish work we may have beauty without durability, but we have rarely durability without beauty, so that the fewer defects of any kind in our work caused by inferior material, inferior workmanship, or any other cause, it is more likely to be durable, and ought, therefore, to possess beauty. There are certain qualifications absolutely necessary to durability in varnish. The material of which it is made must be of the proper kind, pure and unadulterated; the manipulation in manufacturing must be correct as to time, quantities, temperature, handling, etc., and age is also necessary. The want of durability arising from the quality of the materials, or from the manner of manufacturing, the painter has no control over; but let me say here, that frequently a first-class varnish has been used upon a car, and after being in service for a short time it deadens, checks, cracks, chips, or flakes, and therefore shows a very poor record. The varnish is condemned, when in reality, had the varnish been applied under different circumstances and over different work, the result would have been good and the durability satisfactory.