This is a time-tried whitewash, either for inside or outside work, and has been known to retain its brilliancy for over thirty years. Nice unslaked lime, 1/2 bushel; slake it with boiling water; cover it during the process to keep in the steam. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve or strainer, and add to it 1/4 bushel of salt, previously well dissolved in water; rice, 3 pounds—boiled to a thin paste and stirred in boiling hot; Spanish whiting, 1/2 pound; best glue, 1 pound, which has been previously dissolved by soaking it well, and then hanging it over a slow fire in a small kettle immersed in a larger one filled with water. Now add hot water, 5 gallons, to the mixture, stir well, and let it stand a few days covered from the dirt. It should be put on hot. For this purpose it is best to keep it in a kettle on a portable furnace, or use other means more convenient. It answers as well as oil paint for brick or stone, and is much cheaper.
Coloring matter, dissolved in alcohol, may be put in and made of any shade you like. Spanish brown stirred in will make red-pink, more or less deep, according to quantity. A delicate tinge of this is very pretty for inside walls. Finely pulverized common clay, well mixed with Spanish white, makes reddish stone color. Yellow ochre stirred in makes yellow wash, but chrome goes further, and makes a color generally esteemed prettier. In all these cases the darkness of the shade is of course determined by the quantity of the coloring used. It is difficult to make rules, because tastes differ. It would be best to try experiments on a shingle, and let it dry. Green must not be mixed with lime. The lime destroys the color, and the color has an effect on the whitewash which makes it crack and peel. When inside walls have been badly smoked and you wish to make them a clean, clear white, it is well to squeeze indigo plentifully through a bag into the water you use before it is stirred into the whole mixture; or blue vitriol pulverized and dissolved in boiling water and put into whitewash gives a beautiful blue tint. If a larger quantity than five gallons be wanted the same proportions should be observed.
Durable Paint for Tin Roofs.
| Linseed Oil30 | parts. |
| Oil of Turpentine10 | parts. |
| Colcothar14 | parts. |
| Red chalk46 | parts. |
The coloring substances are pulverized and the mixture ground. Should the mixture be too thick reduce it with equal parts of linseed oil and oil of turpentine. Give the roof two coats, allowing the first to dry before applying the second. See that the tin is free from rust, and the coats should not be laid on too thick nor too thin.
Paint for Roofs.
| Pulverized slate (argillaceous schist)35 | parts. |
| Pulverized mica slate (mica schist)30 | parts. |
| Pulverized rosin35 | parts. |
Mix, and add one-half its volume of pure coal-tar and boil to a fluid mass.
This paint gives a very durable and pliant covering, which does not melt in the greatest heat of summer nor crack or break in the greatest cold. It resists moisture, and a roof painted with it need not be gone over again for four or five years.