Practical House, Wagon and Automobile Painter / including sign painting, and valuable hints and recipes

by W. F. White

TO FINISH FURNITURE AND OTHER WORK IN SIXTEENTH CENTURY OAK.

First fill the wood with any good filler. Fill it well, then take Vandyke brown 3 parts, and burnt sienna 1 part, and mix to a stiff paste with boiled oil and japan, and thin with turpentine, until you can brush it on the wood, and not have it look dauby or muddy. Give the work a light coat, and brush it out well and carefully. Too much pigment will make your work too dark. Wherever you want the light or worn spots to appear, wipe off the stain with a cloth, and with a badger blender carefully blend the stain into the edges of the worn or light spots. Don’t stain too much at once, for fear your stain may set so you cannot wipe out and blend. When the stain is dry, sandpaper lightly with No. 0 paper. Finish with two coats rubbing varnish, or with hard oil finish. Polish with rotten stone and raw oil.

A SUPERIOR GLUE (WATERPROOF).

A very superior article may be made by dissolving 3 parts of india rubber in 30 parts of naphtha; heat and agitation will be required to effect the solution; when the rubber is completely dissolved, add 64 parts of finely powdered shellac, which must also be heated in the above mixture until all is dissolved. This mixture may be produced in sheets like glue by pouring it while hot upon plates of metal, where it will harden. When required for use, it may simply be heated in a pot till soft. Two pieces of wood or leather, joined together with this glue, can scarcely be sundered without a fracture of the parts.

A VALUABLE CEMENT.

We find the following recipe good: The compound of glycerin, oxide of lead, and red lead, for mending cast-iron that has been fractured with the happiest results. It takes some little time to dry, but turns almost as hard as stone, and is fire and waterproof. For mending cracks in stone or cast-iron ware, where iron filling cannot be had, we think it is invaluable. Take litharge and red lead, equal parts, mix thoroughly and make into a paste with concentrated glycerin to the consistency of soft putty, fill the crack and smear a thin layer on both sides of the casting so as to completely cover the fracture. This layer can be rubbed off, if necessary, when nearly dry, by an old knife or chisel.

LINSEED OIL AND IRON RUST.

The oleaginous principle of linseed oil is said to be in the nature of neutral salts called linolein, consisting of linoleic acid combined with a glycerine base. Linolein is said by some writers to constitute three-fourths of the volume of linseed oil, and that the drying properties of the oil reside in the acid principle of the linolein; that is, linoleic acid has the property of attracting and combining with oxygen to form the substance known as dry linseed oil. This acid is said to be a compound of several different acid principles, combined in definite proportions. Writers seem to disagree as to what the acids are, and in what respect they differ from the acid properties of the non-drying fixed oils, but that is a question which need not be discussed here. The glycerine base of linolein seems to be common to all fixed oils, and is set down as an oxide consisting of one equivalent of water and five of oxygen; hence the affinity between the linoleic acid and its glycerine base.

Linoleic acid, like other acids, has an affinity for alkalies and the ordinary metallic oxides. It unites with them, forming neutral compounds. This affinity is said to be electrical; the alkalies and oxides electro-positive, and the acid electro-negative. The greater the contrast in this respect, the stronger the affinity; hence, some acids separate others from their bases and form new salts by precipitation. As an instance:

Drop sulphuric acid into a solution of acetate of lead. It will displace the acetic acid, form sulphate of lead and precipitate, leaving the liberated acetic acid in solution. In linolein, this acid is so constituted that the affinity, or attraction between it and its glycerine base, is too feeble to resist and keep back the oxygen of the air; hence, when linseed oil is exposed to the air in a thin layer, oxygen unites with its linoleic acid, and this process continues until the oil becomes dry to the touch. Beyond this point the process is slower, because the oil is now less penetrable; but the process goes on until the layer of oil becomes hard and brittle, no matter with what pigment it may be mixed, although the pigment may for a time retard the action of the destroying elements.