Class _l_T32i^ Book S JL_ Copyiight N" . COPYRIGHT DEPOSm HOUSE PAINTING GLAZING, PAPER HANGING, AND WHITEWASHING A BOOK FOR THE HOUSEHOLDER BY ALVAH HORTON SARIN, M.S. AUTHOR OF " TECHNOLOGY OF PAINT AND VARNISH " MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, THE SOCIETY OF CHEMICAL INDUSTRY, THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR TESTING MATERIALS, THE SOCIETY OF ARTS (LONDON), ETC., LECTURER IN NEW YORK UNIVERSITY FIRST THOUSAND FIRST EDITION NEW YORK JOHN WILEY & SONS London; CHAPMAN & HALL, Limited 1908 ^9 ^ UBHARY of CONGRESS twu GoDles Keceive« JUL 11 1908 <^XAlt, X , I <^ o K GJ^Si; «t AXc, Wo. 5 430 HY a. Copyright. igo8, BY ALVAH HORTON SABIN Entend at Stationers' Hall Stanbopc iPress F. H. CILSON COMPANY BOSTON. U.S.A. ^'^ A 4, 4' PREFACE For every man, woman, and child in this country more than a gallon of paint is used every year; and the relative amount is increas- ing. Paint is a necessity; it is an economy; it is a means of sanitation; it helps us to keep clean; it keeps us warm in winter and dry in summer; it brings light into dark corners; it beautifies our homes; it increases our credit; it raises our assessments; the most ignorant enjoy its benefits; and the most highly de- veloped minds, whose culture is so pro- found that they have forgotten all they ever learned at college, retain its appreciation. A subject so various in its uses, so universal m its appreciation, deserves attention, — in- deed merits intelligent study. It is not pro- iv Preface posed in this little book to enter largely into the theory of paint manufacture, nor to describe its use for carriage-painting and the thousand and one purposes for which special paints and varnishes are made, but to tell simply and plainly the use of preservative coatings of one sort and another for the protection and orna- ment of common houses, as they are known, or should be, to every one of the author's fellow-countrymen. An experience of many years in the manufacture and use of paints and varnishes is the foundation of such knowledge as may be set forth, and while on many points even experts disagree, it will be the intention to set forth fairly sound and safe practice. CONTENTS Page Materials . i Pigments , 5 Care of Paint Brushes „ 16 Exterior Painting 19 Painting Structural Metal 34 Interior Painting ^6 Varnishing . 40 A Colored Finish without Paint ...... 59 Floor-Finishing 6r Glazing 68 Papering 77 Whitewashing 96 Kalsomining 102 Cold-Water Paints 108 HOUSE PAINTING Materials, Paint is composed of two parts: a liquid, which is mainly oil in most house-paints, and a powdered solid, which gives oil color and body to the mixture. ^^^^^^ The liquid part is especially termed the vehicle; the soHd, the pigment. The oil is Hnseed oil, made from flax-seed; raw oil is the natural oil, which will dry or become hard enough to handle, if exposed to the air in a thin film, in about a week; and boiled oil is the same, to which has been added a small pro- portion of " drier," and will dry in twelve to twenty-four hours. Paint drier, also known as japan, or paint japan, is a com- pound of lead, or manganese, or both, soluble .2 House Painting in oil; it takes up oxygen from the air, and passes it over to the oil; for it must be known that oil dries, not at all by evaporation, but by absorbing oxygen from the air and uniting chemically with it, so as to make a new ma- terial, which is not a liquid, but is a tough, Drying of leathery soHd, and weighs a fifth or Linseed Oil ^ quarter more than the oil from which it was made. This is technically called linoxyn. The drier is, therefore, a chemical agent, and acts toward oil somewhat as kind- ling-wood does to coal, only it doesn't entirely burn up, but keeps on acting for a long time. If too much of it is used the oxidation, or combustion, goes on too strongly, and the oil gets over-oxidized, or burned, and its tough- ness and elasticity are impaired; therefore we must be sparing in its use, for we find the slow-drying paints are the most durable. Paint drier is usually sold as a liquid, and to a gallon of oil in paint not more than five Materials 3 or ten per cent of drier should be added; less for outside than for inside paints. The best driers do not contain rosin, but most cheap driers do. It is not often necessary to use drier with boiled oil, as the manufacturer has already put in as much drier as is desir- able. Drier should never be added to mixed paint, as the maker has exactly proportioned the ingredients to give the best results; there are cases where it is proper to add oil to a mixed paint, and sometimes turpentine, but not drier. Turpentine is sometimes an ingredient of paint. In this connection it always means the essential oil of turpentine, a spirits of colorless liquid, lighter than water, Turpentine highly inflammable, volatile. It mixes per- fectly with oil, and increases the fluidity of paint. If we mix a considerable amount of it with paint, it makes a thinner film and one which is not glossy when dry, but dull, — -4 House Painting what painters call "flat." Most paints stick better to a "flat" surface than to a glossy one, and so turpentine is often added to under- coats; also sometimes a "flat" surface is pre- ferred, as a matter of taste, as a finish; but it is always less durable than a glossy one. Turpentine substitutes are usually benzine, a petroleum product between light naphtha and kerosene; often mixed with rosin spirits, or with wood distillates to conceal the odor. Genuine turpentine is always preferred, but the substitutes are cheaper, and for some purposes are fairly good. Turpentine should not be put in with the pigment until after the oil; because with most pigments there is a sort of attraction between the oil and the pigment, and it is important not to prevent them from uniting as intimately as possible; and turpentine seems to do this. After the oil is all in and well mixed is the time to put in the turpentine. On the other Pigments c hand, if we are to add drier to paint, it is to act only on the oil, and it is well to mix it with the oil before the latter is put with the pig- ment. Moreover, the amount of drier is to be proportioned to the oil, not to the finished paint. To make paint thinner and more fluid, turpentine is much more efficient than an equal volume of oil; as it is volatile it does not act as a binder or cementing material, and therefore lessens the elasticity and durability of the paint. Pigments, The most important pigment is white lead. Every one has heard of Dutch pro- cess white lead; it was invented white before the Dutch took Holland, but ^^^^ that is no matter. It is the standard white lead; it is made from metalHc lead, corroding it by the aid of acetic acid, but it does not contain any acid; it is a basic carbonate of 6 House Painting lead, a very white, impalpably fine powder; heavy, as all lead compounds are, and having a natural affinity for oil. It is sold as dry white lead, a powder, or as paste white lead, which usually contains ten per cent of Unseed oil, and is a thick, heavy paste, to which oil may be added by stirring it in with a stick or paddle. A gallon of white lead paint weighs 21 or 22 pounds; if we add 5 gallons of oil to 100 pounds of paste lead we have 6\ gallons of paint weighing 21.3 pounds per gallon; a gallon of oil weighs 'j.'] pounds, a gallon of turpentine 7.2 pounds, and a gallon of benzine a little over 6 pounds. 15 pounds paste lead and 6.3 pounds oil make a gallon of paint; 14 pounds dry lead and 7^ pounds oil make a gallon. A gallon of anything measures 231 cubic inches, and a gallon of water weighs 8|^ pounds. But linseed oil is sold by the barrel on the conventional or trade agreement that 7^ pounds shall be sold as a gallon, or a Pigments >-j 50-gallon cask will measure nearly 3 gallons short; this is to cover the cost of the barrel. Similarly, turpentine when bought by the barrel is usually bought on Charleston or Savannah measure and is two or three per cent short, having evaporated through the staves of the barrel. White lead of similar composition is also made by a more rapid process than the Dutch process, and is prob- ably not very different in its qualities. White lead of this composition turns black if exposed to sulphur, and white lead paint becomes yellowish after a time if not exposed to sun- light. In the sun it constantly bleaches out to a clear white. Reducing paste paint to the consistency of paint by the addition of more oil is by painters called "breaking" it; this is done by putting the paste in a suitable vessel and stirring it with a paddle (or in a mechanical mixer) with enough oil to make a thick fluid; and 8 House Painting when it is uniformly mixed add more oil until the necessary amount has been put in. Paint composed largely of white lead improves by standing in a tightly covered package; it is appreciably better after a year than when it was first made. This is probably not true of other pigments, but there seems to be a slow action on the oil which is advantageous. White lead acts as a drier on oil, and it is possible to make a paint of white lead and raw oil without any drier which will dry fairly well in hot, dry weather out of doors. SubHmed white lead is a very different thing. It is made directly from ores contain- Sublimed ing lead and zinc by roasting them ^^^^ in a furnace; the lead is converted into a basic lead sulphate, and the zinc into oxide, and these are carried off in a current of air, and after cooling are collected as a white powder containing about five per cent of zinc oxide. This sublimed lead is a white powder, Pigments 9 very fine, and is not much discolored by sul- phurous gases. It is claimed by the makers to be superior to the other kind; but according to Professor Ladd, who has investigated this matter, many troubles have been encountered in its use. It is less expensive than standard white lead, and is used by some manufacturers of mixed paints. Probably it is a valuable pigment, if not quite so good as the other. Zinc-lead is a similar compound containing a very much larger proportion of oxide of zinc. Next to white lead in importance is white zinc, or zinc oxide, made by burning zinc ore in a current of hot air, though white French zinc is made by burning the ^°^ metallic zinc. It is the most nearly pure white pigment we know, and is a most valu- able ingredient of paint. It is less heavy than white lead; 9.5 pounds white zinc and ^.J pounds oil make a gallon of paint, which weighs 15.2 pounds, or i gallon oil and 12 10 House Painting pounds zinc make 1.3 gallons; or 100 pounds zinc and 8|^ gallons oil make io|- gallons of paint. Lithopone is a white pigment made by adding a solution of zinc sulphate to a solu- tion of barium sulphide; the result Lithopone is a precipitate containing barium sulphate and zinc sulphide. Lithopone, how- ever, is seldom of the exact composition thus indicated, and usually contains some zinc oxide. It is a pigment of considerable value, but cannot be used with lead; even a lead drier will turn it dark. It is said that it will mix with shellac, which neither white lead nor white zinc will do. There are other white powders, which are often put into white paint, to cheapen it (extend it), or to produce certain desirable qualities. These are barytes, which is natural barium sulphate, ground to a fine powder; blanc fixe, which is precipitated barium sul- Pigments 1 1 phate; terra alba, which is hydrated calcium sulphate, or gypsum; whiting, which is powdered chalk, or calcium carbonate, marble dust, silica, silicate of magnesia, and China clay or kaohn. None of these are of any value by themselves; when wet with oil they become nearly transparent. It is not unlikely that some of these, in aggregate less than 25 per cent of the pigment, may be valuable; but their exact standing has not been settled. There are two principal blue pigments, ultramarine and Prussian blue; the most important yellow is chromate of colored lead, or chrome yellow; ocher is a ^smen s yellow clay, dried and powdered, containing iron; it is dull in color; green is a mixture of chrome yellow and Prussian blue, called chrome green; and for bright red we usually use a pigment made by precipitating a coal- tar color on barium or lead sulphate or some 12 House Painting other neutral base. English vermilion is too costly to be used much in house-painting; the dull reds are oxides of iron, such as Venetian red, Tuscan red, Indian red, and the Hke; the browns are likewise iron oxides. The blacks are either boneblack or lamp black, though graphite is used as a preservative paint on metal. There are, of course, many other more expensive pigments, which are used in carriage-painting and the like, which may sometimes be used in the house, but as a rule house-paints are made up of the foregoing. To mix these pigments properly with oil they should first be mixed in a mechanical stirrer and then ground through a burr-stone mill; but it is not unusual to mix them in a stirrer, or mixer as it is called, and use them directly. Besides paint, the painter needs brushes. The best brushes for plain work are what are called pound brushes (most of them weigh less than half a pound, but that is the name Brushes l^ of them), which are round brushes nearly two inches in diameter and with bristles six inches long, when new. Next in paint value to these is an oval brush, two ^"^"shes and a half inches wide. A great deal of house-painting is done with four- and five- inch flat brushes; the objection to these is that it is too hard work to use them properly; the paint should be well rubbed on, and you cannot do this with a very wide brush. When using a new pound brush (or any brush with very long bristles) it is necessary to put a bridle on the brush. This consists in tying the bristles with an encircling band, and some do it by winding the brush with cord; but the easiest way, and I think the best, is to wrap a piece of cloth around the brush, a piece say eight inches wide, and tie it firmly first to the binding. Then with another piece of cord tie it around the bristles, say four inches from the end of the bristles, and two 14 House Painting inches from the binding; then turn back the cloth, Hke a sleeve half turned inside out, and draw it tight, and tie it again around the binding. Trim it off, and the bridle is done. As the bristles wear short the bridle may be moved up, and finally removed. But don't buy a new brush with a bridle on it; take it off and see if the bristles are elastic and strong; soft, flabby bristles do not make a good brush. The best brush money can buy is a good investment. For varnishing use an oval or flat varnish brush. These do not have so long bristles; for most work a brush two and one-half inches wide is large enough, though for flowing var- nish on to a flat surface a four-inch flat brush is useful. Of course, for painting sash a small brush is necessary; brushes made for this purpose are called *'sash tools "; round brushes of various sizes, none very large. Some of these Brushes 1 5 have a convex end, others are chiseled; a chisel end is one that has been cHpped off from each of two sides so as to give an edge along the middle of the end of the brush. Oval brushes are generally finished with a chisel end, especially oval varnish brushes; round and flat brushes not often, but flat varnish brushes have sometimes chisel ends. Some of these oval and flat bristle brushes are very useful in painting, especially about mold- ings and the like; from one to two and a half inches in width. In fact, a two-inch oval varnish brush is an exceedingly useful imple- ment for a great variety of work. For flowing on varnish a soft, flat brush, made of camel's hair, is best; it is convenient to have one narrow, say one inch, one medium, two inches, one wide, four inches. Paint is not easily handled with these soft brushes. Besides these, painters use dusting brushes, of stiff" bristles, loosely built, spreading Hke a broom; l6 House Painting and for cleaning old paint they use ordinary scrubbing brushes, and sometimes steel wire brushes, which are scrubbing brushes with stiff steel wire instead of bristles; a good style is about three inches wide and six or eight inches long, with wires three inches long. Care of Paint Brushes, Brushes used in oil paints and in oleo- resinous varnishes may be kept fresh and clean over-night, or while carrying them from place to place, by wrapping them closely in several thicknesses of paper; but brushes used in spirit varnishes, Hke shellac, should be washed out at once in alcohol, as they dry very quickly, and are then difficult to soften. The proper way to keep brushes, during short intervals when not in use, is in a brush- Brush- safe. A simple form, if several are ^^*® to be kept, is a deep pail with a fairly tight cover; on the inside of the pail, at Care of Paint Brushes ij convenient distances from the top, are nails, on which the brushes may be hung by cor- responding holes bored in their handles, or by loops of twine at such a height that the bristles of the brushes are immersed, nearly up to the binding, in oil or turpentine which fills the pail several inches from the bottom. In this way the brush is prevented from drying, and yet it does not rest its weight on the bristles, which would cause it to get out of shape. If it is a shellac brush it must be hung in alcohol (or shellac varnish). It is always proper to hang a varnish brush in the kind of varnish in which it is used. A single small brush may be hung in a deep fruit jar, or a wide-mouthed bottle, by a string attached to the cover or cork. All large paint-stores sell brush-safes, made of tin, with hinged covers, and with con- venient hangers for brushes; but the principle is the same in all, and any one can contrive one for his own needs. 1 8 House Painting When through with a job the brushes should be well washed out; this may be with turpentine, but a cheaper material is kerosene, which answers very well; if they can be rinsed out with benzine finally it is a good way. It is also a good plan to wash out the paint with kerosene (or turpentine) and then wash the brush thoroughly with soap and warm water, finally rinsing out very thoroughly; then by jerking the brush rapidly through the air most of the water may be thrown out; then hang it up to dry where it will be safe from dust. Dust is the great enemy of varnish. Old brushes which have been allowed to dry with the paint in them are usually thrown , away, or sold for a trifle to the Renovat- -^ ing junkman; in which latter case they Brushes i i i r come into the handsot a renovator, who softens them by soaking in hot kerosene, usually in a hot-water bath, the kerosene being Exterior Painting 1 9 in the interior vessel and boiling water outside; after which they are cleaned by the use of a mixture of one part acetone and two parts benzole, or coal-tar naphtha. This mixture is a powerful solvent, and will dissolve the old dried paint out of almost any brush. Any of the modern varnish-removers, which contain these liquids, will do the same; and it is not necessary to throw away a costly brush be- cause it has been neglected. But the best way is not to neglect it. The best brushes are the cheapest in the end, and a valuable brush deserves good care. Exterior Painting. If we are to paint the outside of a new house, the first thing is to go over it and "stop " the knots and pitchy places, stopping This is done by covering them with ^ a coat of heavy shellac varnish. The tend- ency is for the pitch in the knot to ooze 20 House Painting out and soften the paint and discolor it. The shellac is supposed to stop this, but it does so only very imperfectly; however, there is nothing else to do. This is so serious a difficulty that the late Mr. Masury, a cele- brated manufacturer and paint expert, ad- vised leaving the house unpainted, to the weather, for a year; by which time the pitch will be either washed out or hardened. In fact, it is not unusual for the paint applied to houses of southern pine to come off in the course of two or three years (or one year), and then the next paint adheres all right. However, most people insist on having a new house painted immediately, and the best that can be done is to stop the knots and the worst places with shellac. This works better inside than out. Then the priming coat is to be applied. Consider now what will happen if a coat of good thick paint is put on a clean board. Exterior Painting 21 The oil is rapidly absorbed ; but the pigment stays on the surface, and having no oil, or httle, to bind it, it shortly becomes priming a dry powder and falls off. To pre- ^^^^ vent this, the obvious thing is to use less pig- ment and more oil. Therefore, to make a priming coat, add a gallon of raw oil to a gallon of ordinary paint; a spongy wood, like redwood, may take more oil. Redwood is a peculiar wood; it is very open and spongy, so much so that it is reputed a comparatively safe building material, because ii it takes fire a little water puts the fire out, as it is so readily absorbed by the wood that it ceases to burn. This explains the trouble often encountered in making paint stay on it; it requires more oil in the priming coat than other woods, so that the pores may be filled with oil, and thus a surface be formed for the adhesion of the subsequent coats of paint. 22 House Painting Another very difficult wood to paint is cypress. This is not bad where the grain is straight and uniform, but around knots and burls the grain is filled with pitchy matter which effectually prevents the entrance of the oil of the priming coat. This resistance is not overcome by the addition of turpen- tine; and such places must be treated as pitchy places in hard pine, by a coat of shellac, which nevertheless is not satisfactory. Probably the only way to get really good results is to leave it exposed to the weather for a year before painting. On inside work the use of shellac is less objectionable, as it is permanent indoors. A priming coat should be used freely; put on all you can; not enough to run, but up to that limit. This coat is to fill the pores of the wood, and it is the most important of all. A gallon of this thin paint will cover about three hundred square feet. When this is dry, go over the surface and faith- Exterior Painting 23 fully putty up all the nail-holes and other holes. If you put on the putty before the priminp; coat, it will not stick. . . Puttying Putty will be described elsewhere; it is crowded down hard into the holes with a stiff steel putty-knife. Then begins the real painting. Most houses are primed with some light color, the basis of which must be either lead or zinc. It is a general — not universal, but in the writer's opinion well-founded — belief that a mixture of the two is better than either alone. White lead tends to lose part of its oil by weathering, and then the loose pig- ment — not the whole of the paint, but the superficial part — comes off as a powder; chalks, as the painters say. Zinc does not do this, but makes a hard coating which tends to crack and peel off; and a mixture of, say, two parts white lead to one part white zinc is more durable than either. This will in many cases be colored by some of the pigments already 24 House Painting mentioned. A little black mixed with white makes a pure gray; but a more agreeable gray results from a mixture with this of red, which makes a warmer tone, or blue, which is colder. Black and red make brown; drab and fawn color contain gray with red and yellow. Green is a mixture of blue and yellow, and the pale Color greens are derived from this by add- ^ "^®^ ing it to white; but olive-green con- tains also an appreciable amount of yellow, more than enough to make a neutral green, and may be darkened with a Httle black. Orange is yellow with red, and with white this makes buff. Blue with red makes purple, and this with black gives maroon; a bright red with a little blue is crimson, and red with a little yellow is scarlet. White with a little red is pink. Besides the pure colors for tinting, already described, it is desirable to have a few others; thus, a good yellow ocher is a clear but not bright brownish yellow, and with Exterior Painting 25 white gives straw or corn color; burnt umber is deep brown, and with white gives warm or reddish drab tints; raw umber gives yellowish drab. We may well consider the price we will have to pay for paint. Dry white lead is seldom sold as low as seven cents a cost of pound; white zinc at six cents is a ^^^^^ moderate price; oil has within a few years varied from ten and a half to four and a half cents a pound; let us say six cents for oil, and if we put in the necessary drier at the same price as the oil we shall underestimate it, for turpentine costs more than oil, and good drier is made from oil, turpentine, lead and manganese oxides, and with a large amount of highly skilled labor, while cheap rosin driers are an injury to any one who uses them. Calling the oil and drier six cents and lead seven, a gallon of white lead paint costs for materials $1.42, and a gallon of white zinc 26 House Painting ninety-six cents. A paint made of two-thirds of a gallon of lead and one-third of a gallon of zinc costs ^1.27 for raw materials. If to this we add twelve cents for making a gallon, which is not far from the actual cost in large quantities, and eleven cents for packages and boxing, we have ^ i .50 as the factory cost. To this there should be added something for profit, and something for freight charges; and this gives an idea of what the buyer may expect to pay for a good article. If he buys a light-colored paint for less than the cost of good materials he must look out for himself. It is claimed by some undoubtedly expert paint manufacturers that by the addition of cer- tain cheaper materials, as silicates, carbonates, and the Hke, they can lessen the cost and still maintain the durability, and this is not im- possible nor indeed unUkely; but such paints are Hkely to be less opaque than pure lead and zinc paints, and hence may need an extra Exterior Painting 27 coat to get the desired covering power, and this involves more labor. In plain work a man will put on from one to two gallons of paint a day (oftener one than more), so that the cost of labor is always more than that of the paint. If a dark-colored paint is used, this should not contain any lead or zinc, and will be at once more durable and cheaper; but, as a matter of fact, nearly all houses are painted with a light color. Ready-mixed paints are sold in enormous quantities, and are no doubt more convenient, uniform, and better made than those mixed by hand. If they are made of good mate- rials and by intelligent men they are in every way desirable. Such paints should be used strictly according to directions. Nothing is more objectionable than indis- criminate thinning of paint with turpentine or benzine, and nothing is more commonly done. Paint should, before using, be thoroughly 28 House Painting stirred up from the bottom, and it will be no harm to strain it through two thicknesses of cheesecloth. Most experts advise that to the first coat of paint which is appHed over the priming coat, from half a pint in hot weather to a pint in cool weather of turpentine be added to each gallon of paint; this is to pre- vent gloss and enable the next coat to adhere well. For the last coat use no turpentine; the more gloss it has, the longer it will wear. A thin coat of paint will dry through more quickly than a thick one, and Thick or ^ -^ Thin most paint manufacturers advise f'QO + O ^ ^ , the appHcation of thin coats. There is no doubt that a given amount of paint applied in thin coats is better than the same amount flowed on in thick coats. On the other hand, it is not usual to apply more than two coats over the priming coat, and if these are too thin — and they are often made so, not so much by excessive brushing as Exterior Painting 29 by thinning before use — they do not give proper protection. The late John W. Masury, the greatest paint-man of his time, advocated flowing on full, heavy coats. Mr. Houston Lowe, a manufacturer and undoubtedly a high authority, classifies pigments as active and inactive to Unseed oil, and beheves that active paints, like lead and zinc, are best in thin coats, and inactive, Hke iron oxides, etc., are better in thick, heavy coats. More time must be allowed between coats if they are thick; never less than a week; two weeks is better, a month still better. Painting is best done in moderately warm weather, not below 50 degrees F., better at 70 degrees F.; in cold weather more time must be allowed for it to dry, and less uniform results are ob- tainable. It must be done in dry weather. Heavy coats in cold weather wrinkle and do all sorts of bad things. A gallon of paint ordinarily covers about 500 to 600 30 House Painting square feet one coat; it may be brushed out to cover nearly twice that surface, but I do not approve of such thin coats. Some do. The door- and v^indow-casings, corner boards, and the Hke, are collectively called the "trim"; the majority of painters Painted do not paint these until they have laid on the body color, but some good painters advise painting the trim first. Of course the cornice is alw^ays painted first of all, as paint may drip from the brush on the v^all belovsr. The trim, w^hich is usually painted a different color or shade, amounts, on an ordinary house, to one-fourth or one- third the v^hole; it should be carefully esti- mated beforehand. A good man v^ill cover 800 square feet in ten hours, if painting from a ladder; iioo to 1500 square feet if painting from a platform; but on intricate surfaces, like piazzas, very much less. Some painters Exterior Painting 31 regard these figures as rather high; there are great differences in houses. Wall-shingles are sometimes, but not usu- ally, painted; they are often colored with a shingle-stain, which is a coloring Roof matter dissolved or suspended in ^*^"*^°S a volatile Hquid called creosote, in which the shingles are dipped. Roof-shingles are some- times dipped in Hnseed oil and allowed to dry before using. Tin or other metal roofs are difficult to paint, because the tin has an im- perceptible coating of grease, or of some chemical substance used in its manufacture, which prevents the adhesion of paint; if this is removed by thoroughly scrubbing the sur- face with soap and water, or with coarse cloths wet with benzine, the paint will then adhere. Galvanized iron rain-spouts and gutters are to be treated the same way, other- wise paint will not stick to galvanized iron until it has been some time in use. Roof- 32 House Painting paint should contain no turpentine and little or no drier, and should be rich in oil. "Fire- proof paint," sometimes used on shingle roofs, is made by adding to a gallon of any good paint about a pound of powdered boracic acid. This is not really fire-proof, but retards the spread of fire; the heat fuses the boracic acid to a sort of glass, which keeps out the air. It is of no value until it gets thor- oughly dry, and in the course of a year or two the acid is washed out by the rain; for a time it has considerable effect. Canvas roofs and floors are made thus: the canvas is nailed down, avoiding any large Canvas wrinkles, but paying no attention to ^®®*^ small ones. Then wet it thoroughly with water; the cloth will shrink and be per- fectly smooth. It is customary to apply white lead paint while still wet; but it may be allowed to dry before painting, as the wrinkles do not come back. Exterior Painting 33 As to paints not based on lead or zinc, they are dark in color, made with inert pigments, and are usually very durable, more so than the lead and zinc paints. The following suggestion may be considered properly in connection with exterior painting: in building a house, the door and window frames should receive a coat of paint, which may be a cheap iron oxide paint, on their inner surfaces, that is, on the surfaces which will be concealed in the subsequent construction. This will have great effect in preventing decay, and should always be done. The under side of piazza floors and door-steps should be similarly protected. Exterior varnishing, as of rail- ings, will be considered with the general subject of varnishing. ^4 House Painting Painting Structural Metal. By structural metal we commonly mean steel and cast iron; wrought iron is rarely used, and is more durable than steel. Cast iron is much less liable to rust than steel; and as it is thicker, there is less danger of its total destruction. Steel, if not properly cared for, perishes more rapidly than wood; and it is therefore imperative that it should receive adequate protection. In the first place, the surface must be clean. If it is already rusty, do not paint over the Cleaning existing rust; clean it off with steel ^^^^^ scrapers, wire brushes, and finally with dry scrubbing brushes. It would be better if it could be made absolutely clean by the use of acid or the sand blast, but the steel used in houses is not Hkely to be treated in this way. But do not spare labor to get it as clean as possible; then the paint will Painting Structural Metal 35 stick to the metal. As the oil does not soak into the surface, it is not necessary to have a thin paint, but it may receive three coats of some good paint. Graphite is largely used as a pigment for these paints; there are some varnish paints and varnish-like preparations w^hich are good; red lead mixed v^ith linseed oil, in the proportion of eighteen to twenty- four pounds of pigment to a gallon of oil, mixed on the spot and immediately before using, is very much liked. It makes a good under-coat; its color and w^orking Painting qualities may be improved by add- ^^^^^ ing lampblack; and it should be covered by a coat of some other paint. Whatever paint is used should be v^ell brushed on to the surface of the metal, in order to remove, as much as possible, the film of air v^hich tends to prevent perfect adhesion, and any crevices v^here the steel is riveted should receive special attention. The rust usually appears first on edges. 36 House Painting angles, and rivet- and bolt-heads; care should be taken that these receive full coats of paint. Slov^-drying paints should be used on struc- tural metal, and plenty of time to dry should elapse between coats. Interior Painting. Sometimes all the interior woodwork is painted; often, in houses where varnish is the _ . . principal finish, certain rooms are Priming ^ ^ and painted. For this a somewhat quicker-drying paint is used than for exteriors; paint is much more durable when not exposed to the weather, and a quick-drying paint is allowable. This may be an ordinary oil-paint, such as has already been described; more often it contains a portion of varnish in place of part of the oil, and is called a gloss paint, as it has consider- able luster; these, if well made, are the most generally serviceable; for fine finishes enamel Interior Painting 37 paints are used. In these the vehicle is a varnish. Before beginning to paint, all knots and pitchy places, and all sap-w^ood, are given a heavy coat of shellac varnish. In all cases the foundation is a priming coat of white lead and oil, to v^hich ten per cent of pale japan drier has been added; it should be almost all oil, very litde lead. When this is dry, all nail- holes and crevices should be puttied up; the putty for this purpose is made by w^orking dry v^hite lead into paste v^hite lead until it is of the right consistency; this dries quickly and very hard. It is not applied vs^ith a steel putty-knife, as this is liable to scratch the w^ood, and scratches v^ill show on interior work; use a wooden spatula, or a conveniently shaped stick of hard wood. The white lead putty is made immediately before using. The first full coat is lead, oil, and turpentine; this may be made by thinning paste lead with a mixture of equal parts oil and turpentine; 38 House Painting this will dry quickly to a hard, "flat" surface, to which the next coat will adhere. The next coat should have about half as much turpen- tine in it as the preceding, and the final coat Finishing none at all. If there is any gloss Co^t when the next to the last coat is fully dry, it must be removed by lightly rub- bing with sandpaper, or with curled hair, or with a handful of excelsior. If an enamel paint is to be used for the finish, the second full coat is sandpapered to produce a smooth surface, over which the enamel is flowed on in a full coat. For extra good work this coat of enamel, when quite hard, is sandpapered, and another coat of enamel is applied. This may be left with its full gloss, or it may be rubbed with pumice and water to a flat (dull) surface. When paint or varnish is spread out in a thin film it remains a liquid for a considerable time, then becomes a sticky, jelly-like sub- Interior Painting 39 stance, which will not run; then it becomes firmer, but still sticky; in this condition it is said to be "tacky"; then it be- Time comes hard enough to handle. ■^Q^^pat^ From the time it is applied until it to Dry first reaches this stage, the time should be noted; suppose it to be twelve hours; then at least four times as much longer, or forty-eig*ht hours, or! sixty hours altogether, should pass before another coat may be applied. A longer time than this is better, but this is the shortest; and this rule applies to outside and inside work, and to varnish as well as paint. For very quick-drying varnishes, such as shellac, this rule does not allow nearly enough time. Old plastered walls may be given a coat of priming and then painted as though they were any other kind of a prepared painting surface. Many painters give a °° Plaster plastered interior wall a coat of size, or thin solution of glue, for a priming coat. New 40 Mouse Painting plaster is alkaline and is liable to attack paint; it is better to let it stand a year; but if neces- sary to do it at once, give it a coat of strong alum and soap size, as described under the subject of Kalsomine; when dry, sponge off and paint. Size is not used on exterior work. Varnishing. There are two principal kinds of varnish, spirit and oleo-resinous. The most impor- tant spirit varnish is a solution of shellac in Shellac alcohol; the American standard is Varnish jyj^jg \^y dissolving five pounds of shellac in a gallon of alcohol; but this is too heavy for common use, and three and a half pounds is more generally suitable. Shellac is naturally dull orange-yellow in color, and is called orange shellac in distinction from white shellac, which is the same bleached with chlorine. It is of better quality before bleach- ing, but, of course, darker in color. Orange Varnishing 4 1 shellac varnish may be made in an earthen jar, half full of alcohol; to each gallon of alco- hol weigh out three and a half pounds of dry shellac (gum-shellac), in flakes, and at night gently drop this into the alcohol. Do not on any account stir it, not even once. Cover it, and next morning stir it with a stick; avoid anything with iron, as iron quickly discolors it. Once an hour stir it for a minute or two, and by night it will be dissolved. White shellac is dissolved in a churn, or in a vessel where it is agitated with a mechanical stirrer. Orange shellac will dissolve in 85 per cent alcohol, though stronger alcohol is better; but white requires 95 per cent. White shellac resin does not keep well; it is Hable to be- come insoluble, and should be dissolved as soon as purchased. In spirit varnishes the liquid, or vehicle, is volatile and serves as a means of spreading the resin in a thin, uniform film. Damar is another spirit var- 42 House Painting nish, and is a solution of damar resin in turpentine. Oleo-resinous varnishes are made by dis- solving certain resins in linseed oil, with the aid of heat; and as one effect of the Oleo- resinous resin is to thicken the oil, they are Varnish , . i • i • / i • thinned v^ith turpentine (or a substi- tute). The larger the proportion of resin, the quicker they are to dry, also the harder and more lustrous, but also the less elastic and durable. The best of these are more durable than the spirit varnishes. The dark-colored varnishes are less costly than the paler ones, because the clear, transparent resins are more rare and expensive; but they are just as good in everything but color, and for many pur- poses this is no objection, as where they are used over dark wood, or as an ingredient of paint (except pure white paint). The resins used in varnish-making are of vegetable origin, and come from the warmer Varnishing 43 parts of the earth, mostly from Africa, the PhiHppine Islands, and from Brazil; though one important and valuable resin ^ ^ Source of comes from New Zealand, which is Varnish • 1 1 • >-x^i 1 Resins outside the tropics. 1 hey have formed lumps on the trees, as spruce-gum is found on spruce trees in this country, but in larger pieces; but for the most part they are dug up from the earth, the trees which produce them having long ago fallen and decayed, and by being long buried in the earth the resin has become harder and more valuable. Fresh resins are, as a rule, too soft to make good var- nish. They are of many different Making kinds, and are believed to have ^'^ ^^'^^^^ been produced by various hardwood trees. The varnish-maker puts a hundred pounds of resin in a kettle over a hot fire, and when it is melted it is at about the temperature of melted lead; then he puts in hot linseed oil. If he puts in oil equal in weight to the melted resin 44 House Painting (which has lost between a fifth and a fourth of its weight in melting), he will make a hard, lustrous varnish, suitable for tables and other furniture; if he puts in twice this amount, he will have a varnish suitable for general interior house-varnishing, elastic and durable, but not quite hard enough for furniture; if he puts in three times as much oil as resin, he will make a very elastic, durable varnish which will get hard out of doors, but indoors will harden too slowly to be agreeable to use. After the oil is put with the resin the compound is cooked several hours until it has thoroughly Use of ^ ^ Tur- united; then turpentine is added in pentine ^ . i • i • sumcient amount to make it thm enough to use, for it is evident that the resin will have thickened the oil so that it would not brush out. It will be seen that the first and most impor- tant cause of differences in varnishes is the relative proportion of resin and oil. It is also Varnishing 45 true that if the varnish is not cooked enough to thoroughly combine the ingredients, it will lack durability; and also that it may be partly decomposed by overheating. If it is just right, it will repel water, and not be affected by it; but if not well made, or if made of poor materials, it may absorb water and be injured if subjected to its action, which is certain to take place. One of the most important and easily made tests for varnish is to varnish a board well with it and let it dry Sponge well; then put a wet sponge on it ®^ over-night. If it is bright and clear next morning, it is a good varnish of its kind, so far as durability is concerned; but if it turns white, it shows that it has absorbed water; and if it remains white after it has dried out, it shows that the water has dissolved out part of it. Such a varnish should not be used on wood-work about a house. It is not a good sign to have a varnish dry 46 House Painting very quickly, as it may indicate that it is overloaded with drier, and that will injure its durability. A good house-varnish should be dry to the touch over-night, at summer temperature in dry weather, but it should stand a week before receiving another coat. Varnish should be put on in a thin coat, rapidly brushed out; if it is of good flowing quality and does not "set" rapidly, How to ^ -^ r j^ Apply it is usual to brush it on with the grain of the wood, then cross-brush it, and again brush it with the grain; in this way inequalities in the coat are obliterated, and a fine uniform film is the result. The varnish-user classifies woods as open- or close-grained; the most common open- grained woods are oak, chestnut, and ash; close-grained, the various sorts of pine, cedar, cypress, maple, birch, whitewood, cherry, etc. Open-grained woods must have the grain filled with what is called a Famishing 47 wood filler; this is a sort of paint, made of silex, or ground quartz rock, mixed with a quick-drying varnish to the consistency of paste, hence called a paste filler; it is thinned with turpentine before using. It is nearly colorless; but if desired to stain the wood, before using, the filler may be colored as desired with an oil stain, which is a pigment ground in enough oil to make a paste; a Uttle of this is added to the filler when thinning it. The filler is rubbed into the surface of the ' wood with a short, stiff brush. It will be fairly dry to the touch in a quarter to half an hour, and the surplus is then rubbed off with a handful of excelsior, rubbing hard across the grain of the wood, to force the filler into the pores as much as possible. Use sticks, not steel tools, to clean the filler out of corners and quirks of the woodwork. Interior trim is usually finished in its natural color; but sometimes the window-sash is stained, to 48 House Painting resemble cherry or mahogany (with raw sienna); and sometimes the woodwork is colored with a dye dissolved in alcohol or turpentine; water stains are not used, except as to be described later. The filler should be allowed a day or two to dry, but close-grained woods do not require fiUing; then the first coat of varnish is applied. Greater economy will result if a coat of oil is first used, but it darkens the wood somewhat. When the varnish is dry, in five to ten days, rub it with curled hair or excelsior to remove the gloss, and apply the second coat; treat this in the same way. This Rubbing may, however, be rubbed lightly Varnish ^|^j^ ^^^ sandpaper or glass-paper. If the third is to be the finishing coat (four coats are better), it may be left with the natural gloss, or it may be rubbed with pumice and water to a dull (flat) finish. The natural gloss is the most durable. For rubbing vdth pumice, a piece of felt is used; it may be had Varnishing 49 from half an inch to an inch in thickness; this is thoroughly wet with water, then a little powdered pumice is put on it, and the surface is rubbed with long, even strokes. From time to time the surface is washed off with clean water, wiped off with a piece of clean chamois- leather, dried with another chamois-leather, and examined. All surfaces exposed to the sun, as window- sash, sills, jambs, inside blinds, outer doors, railings, and the like, are treated as Exterior exterior work, and do not receive Varnishing the varnish used on interior trim, but are varnished with what is called spar-varnish, which is made for the spars and exterior wood- work of yachts. No filler is used on this work, as under the influence of the direct rays of the sun it would be decomposed and come out. The whole surface is built up of suc- cessive coats of spar, Hghtly sandpapered between coats; but the last is a full coat flowed 50 House Painting ■ on, and left always with the natural gloss. Outside doors need varnishing every year; but inside work, though done with a less elastic varnish, if these directions have been fol- lowed, and if good materials have been used, will last fifteen or twenty years; so great is the effect of the direct sunshine. On interior work shellac is a good first coat material, but it should never be used on ex- Shellac terior work, nor where it will be very j^^ ^° hot, as about a fireplace, as it will Varnish melt and bhster. For most in- terior work, shellac is a good varnish, and white shellac discolors wood less than any- thing else. It is appHed in thin coats and given plenty of time to dry. Two coats may be applied the first day, six hours apart; after that allow two days between coats. It will appear to dry very rapidly; but if plenty of time is not taken we shall reach a point where it will not dry at all, or at least will Varnishing 51 seem so. It requires many coats; does not require rubbing between coats, as it will stick anyway, but every four coats ought to be well rubbed, to get a smooth surface. Eight to twelve coats are required for a first-class job. On account of the labor required, it is an expensive finish, but it is very handsome and lasts well. It makes a good floor- varnish; when the floor is well filled with it, a very thin coat once a month, which will dry in a few minutes, will keep the floor in good condition. One more word about fill- ers. Never use a so-called Hquid filler on any account. Nothing but trouble will come of it. A coat of shellac varnish may be used, if desired, as a filler; it is not much of a filler but it is a good surfacer; but what are sold as liquid fillers are cheap and villainous rosin mixtures and are no good. Let us consider what will happen to a coat of paint or varnish if we apply a hard-drying 52 House Painting layer over an elastic one. If we were to paint with something — say white zinc — which Elastic would make a hard, somewhat in- ^^ . " elastic coating, on a rubber balloon, Crack such as children have for toys, and the paint ^ere to dry while the balloon re- mained the same size; and then if we blow up the balloon so that it will be larger, and conse- quently the rubber film, which is the founda- tion, is stretched, it is obvious that the dry paint will crack in every direction, and the rubber will show through the cracks. That makes what the varnish-man calls an elastic undercoat crack, and it is more common than it ought to be. The natural effect of exposure is to harden the outside of a film, so that in many cases if the film were originally of one nature throughout it would become less elastic on the outside; so the general rule is to have the h^est material first applied, then that which is a Httle more elastic, and so on, with Varnishing ^3 the finishing coat most elastic of all. We do this in the ordinary method of painting, as already described, having less oil in the under- coats; the fact that we have a great deal of oil in the priming coat on wood does not count, because that is absorbed by the wood and be- comes a part of the material which we begin to paint. In carriage painting, which if prop- erly done is the highest class of technical paint- ing, the workman begins by filling the minute pores of the wood with oil; then he stops the larger pores with a siliceous filler; then he builds up an extremely hard and perfectly smooth surface with a sort of varnish paint having a gritty mineral base, and having thus estabhshed what he considers an unchanging foundation he is ready to begin to paint. We cannot afford to do all that in house painting, but it must be remembered that our priming coats and putty and fillers are not properly part of the painting or varnishing; they are 54 House Painting treatment of the wood to make it ready and fit to paint and varnish. And if you cannot Proper have a good foundation, you might lion for" ^^ ^^^^ "°^ ^^ anything. It may be Varnish asked how we get cracks over an elastic under-coat; it is because the wood or other soKd substratum does not expand and contract, under the influence of the weather, at the same rate that the paint does. Now if the paint is in every place firmly cemented to the wood, it will be stretched or compressed, only a very little in a place to be sure, but with great force, and the result will be that it will remain a continuous film; but if there is an elastic film between, patches of the paint or varnish will remain compact, and there will be cracks between these patches. Paint or varnish which does this is said to "alligator," from the resemblance to alligator leather. It will be obvious from this that it is neces- sary to give the priming coat, which is mainly Varnishing 55 oil, time to dry; and also that this priming coat should be made with raw oil rather than boiled oil, for raw oil will soak deeply into the wood, and that is where it belongs; while boiled oil tends to form a skin on the surface, and so remains outside; and under this skin a soft body of oily paint is formed. This is really the reason why so many object to the use of boiled oil; it has a tendency to form a glossy skin outside before it begins to dry from the bottom. Of course all oil does this to some extent, but it is generally believed that raw oil with enough liquid drier in it to make it dry in the same time as a kettle-boiled oil will dry more uniformly. Boiled oil makes a more glossy, varnish-like film; in fact, oil may be boiled so much and in such a way as to make a sort of varnish of it, and a great deal of such varnish is used in the useful arts. Boiled oil has its use in making paint, but it is not in the priming coat. 56 House Painting Not infrequently there are porous places in the wood which absorb the priming coat so completely that some of the oil of ^P°^^^°S , .,11- J u- the next coat will soak m, and this leaves the paint on those spots dull or "flat." Also there are hard or pitchy places where the primer does not penetrate, and dries on the surface, and there will be glossy spots. Spot- ting from either of these causes is not the fault of the paint. Blistering is generally caused by moisture in the wood, especially in soft or sappy places. It is a good plan to postpone paint- Blistering . -1 r 1 1 mg a new house until after the plas- tering is done, for this introduces a great amount of water which evaporates directly against or close to the outer wall, and the moisture is liable to penetrate the siding and make bhsters in the new, soft paint. It must be remembered that paint continues to get hard for probably a year, and paint which is Famishing 57 only two or three weeks old is not yet in its permanent condition. It is of great importance to have the oil in the priming coat sink deeply into the wood; and if the latter be of such nature Peeling (like southern pine) that it will not do so, then there is danger that it will peel off. Paint contracts on drying; and the second and third coats exert a strong pull on the priming coat, tending to pull it off unless it is securely attached to the wood. This is more likely to occur on the south than on the north side of a house, as the action of the sun has much to do with it. In repainting an old house this must have close attention. If the original priming coat is not in good condition it must be Burning removed; to examine this, we must scrape or wire-brush all loose and decomposed paint; and if the original primer does not hold firmly to the wood, it may be necessary to burn 58 House Painting off the whole of the old paint. Burning off is done with an instrument called a painter's torch, which burns alcohol, naphtha, or kero- sene, and with which a strong blast of flame can be directed against a surface. The paint is not really burned; but it softens and seems to melt, and is then immediately scraped off with a steel scraper. It is, of course, a slow and consequently somewhat expensive opera- tion; but there are cases where it is the cheapest thing to do, in the end. Besides the painter's torch, varnish removers are used to take off paint and varnish; but. Varnish being more expensive, these are Removers ^^^j ^^^y on indoor work, and especially on moldings and the like, where the torch may do damage. A varnish remover is a liquid which will dissolve dried varnish and paint; it softens the film so that it may be scraped off, or cleaned off with a very stiff scrubbing brush. It is usually made of ace- A Colored Finish JVithout Paint 59 tone, benzole, and similar liquids, and the best contain some waxy substance which prevents the film from drying up again rapidly. They are inflammable and must be used with care. The best are patented. After removing the old paint or varnish, the paint remover is washed off with benzine, but the surface should stand exposed to the air at least a w^eek to let the last of it evaporate, before repainting. A Colored Finish Without Paint. A very handsome and comparatively new finish for open-grained woods consists in dyeing the wood with a water-stain; A Novel when it is dry the grain is filled with ^*y^®.°* ■^ ^ Interior a colored filler; this filler may be an Finish ordinary colorless silica paste-filler to which has been added a pigment of a suitable color, or it may be paste white lead if a white color is desired. As the oil and turpentine 6o House Painting in the filler do not tend to dissolve or mix with the color of the water-stain, we have a sharp contrast between the dyed wood, which forms a background, and the filler in the grain of the wood; for instance, the latter may be white on a blue ground, or dark blue on pale blue, or any other combination of colors which may strike the fancy of the designer. In this way very striking effects, harmonizing with the general color scheme of the room- furnishings, may be easily obtained. Of course, the wood will be subsequently finished with a transparent varnish, as any other wood- work would be. Some very costly and artistic buildings, both public and private, have been done in this way, Floor-Finishing 6 1 Floor-Ftnishing. Probably the easiest thing to do with a floor is to paint it; a floor-paint should have a very elastic varnish for its vehicle. It is Floor- necessary that a floor-paint should ^^^°*^°S dry hard and quickly, because floors must be painted frequently, and we cannot wait long for them to dry. By the use of varnish we can make a floor-paint that will dry in twelve to twenty-four hours, be water-proof, and glossy. If we make an ordinary oil-paint dry as quickly by adding driers, it is so much aflPected that it is not as durable as it should be; and if we do it partly by using turpentine, it dimin- ishes the necessary amount of binder. The country painter adds to ordinary oil-paint a liquid which he buys under the seductive name of "floor paint hardener''; this is a cheap rosin varnish loaded to the last degree with driers, and is in about every rational way 62 House Painting the worst stuff known in the whole paint business. No rosin varnish should be used on any of the woodwork of a house, least of all on the floor. The varnish should be a good Kauri varnish, or its equivalent. It ought to contain about twenty gallons of oil to the hundred pounds of resin; it will need some drier, more than an ordinary interior varnish, but its quick drying is not to be obtained by diminishing the amount of oil, or the paint will chip and flake off. An ordinary paint will do for a floor if two or three months can be allowed for it to dry. Kitchen floors are usually painted, but it is usual to varnish or wax the other floors in the better class of houses. In such cases, if the house is building, it is very desirable to leave the surfacing floor (for all floors should be double) unlaid until the last thing; after the plastering and painting are done, there will be little danger of its being injured, and then it Floor-Finishing 63 may be laid and immediately varnished. If the floor is of oak or other open-grained wood, it is customary to fill the pores with a siliceous paste-filler, as has been described for other work; if close-grained, no treatment is needed. Now we have choice of three finishes. First, the use of an oleo-resinous floor-varnish; this should contain about eighteen ^ Floor- gallons of oil to the hundred pounds Vamish- of good hard varnish resin, as good ^°^ in quality as No. i Kauri. This may be applied directly to the floor, and the first coat will sink in and be absorbed by the wood. We may, if we hke, first fill the pores of the wood with Hnseed oil; there is but one objection to this, which is that it darkens the wood; it becomes somewhat darker immediately, but keeps darkening for some time. Anything con- taining hnseed oil grows darker with age, — that is, any transparent wood-finish. And so it is true that an oleo-resinous varnish darkens 64 House Painting the wood somewhat. Not less than four coats of varnish should be applied; the trouble with all floor-finishes is that they are too thin, and wear off too quickly; for a floor has harder usage than anything else. And plenty of time must be allowed for each coat to dry. Second, we may varnish the floor with shel- lac varnish. The same rules apply to shel- Shellac for lacking floors that have been given Floors • j^ regard to its use on other wood- work; it is the least discoloring of anything that can be put on a floor, and is a very good finish. It is not as hard or durable as a good oleo-resinous varnish, but a thin coat of it, which dries in a few minutes, can be quickly and easily applied once in a month or two (or much less often in rooms little used), and will keep it always looking well. White shellac is usually employed for floor- varnish. Floor-Ftnishing 65 Third, the floor may be waxed. It is com- mon practice to first shellac the floor, one or two coats, and then apply the pioor wax. The wax is not beeswax, but ^*^ a harder wax; this is softened a Httle with oil, and then turpentine enough is added to make a paste, and this is put on the floor, and as soon as it is apparently dry it is poKshed by rubbing with a clean cloth or a brush. For this pur- pose a heavy-weighted brush, weighing ten to twenty pounds, is used, with a long handle Hke a mop-handle; with this the floor may be polished. After a week apply another coat of wax and polish again; keep this up for two months; after this it may be considered that the floor is properly waxed, and only a little need be applied. A waxed or varnished floor is always to be cleaned with a brush or with a broom wrapped in a soft cloth to avoid scratches. But the waxed floor, to be kept in fine condition, must be brush-polished every 66 House Painting few days; and once in a couple of weeks should be sprinkled with a solution of wax in turpen- tine; or better, this may be put on with a brush or a cloth. Prepared floor-wax may now be bought everywhere, much better than the amateur can make. A properly kept waxed floor is certainly the handsomest floor that is known; but if kept well pohshed it is excessively and, many people think, dangerously slippery. It is not out of place here to tell of a very singular fact. A floor varnished every six months with a good Kauri varnish will keep buff'alo moths out of rugs laid on it; similarly, a varnish of this kind thoroughly used about the woodwork, including the interiors of closets, has a very appreciable influence in keeping all sorts of insects out of a house. Shellac or wax will not do this. Old floors are to be cleaned before varnish- ing or waxing. If nothing but shellac or wax Floor-Finishing 67 has been used on them, the. wax may be cleaned off with a cloth wet with turpen- tine, and the shellac will wash _ Cleaning off with a strong solution of Old washing-soda (carbonate); in fact, this will take off wax also. But if an oleo-resinous varnish, or a paint, has been used, it is removed with a liquid varnish- remover, which softens it so that it can be scraped off with a scraper; it may require more than one appHcation. After the removal of the paint or varnish the floor is sponged off with benzine; care must be taken that there is no fire of any sort or description in the room or in any adjoining room. The varnish-remover consists chiefly of volatile and inflammable liquids, and too much care cannot be taken. Stains may then be taken out with a hot ten per cent solution of oxalic acid in water; after the stain is destroyed, wash with hot water and let it dry, then lightly sandpaper the spot. 68 House Painting It is possible to clean a floor of paint or var- nish with caustic soda; put the contents of a can of "concentrated lye" in a couple of gallons of warm water and wet the floor with it. After a time the old paint will be attacked and can be scraped off", and then the floor may be washed perfectly clean. Of course the caustic soda will sink into the wood, and it will be impossible to varnish it soon; but repeated washings, at intervals, for six months will take out the last of it, and then the floor will be in very good condition for varnishing. Glazing. Window glass is of two sorts: plate glass and sheet or cyHnder glass; the latter is the Window more common. Sheet glass is ^^^^^ made by blowing a cylinder of glass which for the larger sizes has to be about fifteen inches in diameter and seven or eight feet long; when cold the ends are cut off, the Glazing 69 cylinder is cut open lengthwise and put into an oven; when hot it can be opened and spread out into a sheet; such a sheet will afford a piece of glass 40 by 60 inches, which is the largest regular size. Smaller sizes are cut out of large sheets. "Single thick" glass is about one-sixteenth of an inch thick, and "double thick" is about twice this thickness. The prod- ucts of different mills differ in thickness as in everything else, so there is no exact uniformity of thickness. All glass is imperfect, showing streaks of irregular thickness, bits of dirt, and bubbles; it is all inspected at the factory and graded. Foreign glassmakers have each his own marks for quality, so there are no grades corresponding to ours; but American makers classify sheet glass as AA, A, B, and "stock sheets." The sizes for single-thick glass run up to 28 by 34, and of double thick to 40 by 60 inches. Plate glass is not blown, but is cast in plates 70 House Painting on iron tables fifteen by twenty-five feet; on these hot tables it is compacted and made of Plate uniform thickness by a roller, which Glass leaves it half or five-eighths of an inch thick; it is annealed first of all, and then ground with sand and emery to a thickness of five-sixteenths to a quarter of an inch thick, and then polished. There is, however, a thin- ner sort, about like double-thick sheet glass, called crystal plate, used for car windows and the like. Selected sheets of plate glass are reserved for silvering and are called mirror plate. New sash must receive a priming coat; if the sash is to be painted, this is a priming coat of white lead containing perhaps four or five pounds of white lead to the gallon; but if the sash are to be varnished, they are primed with oil alone. The oil usually has a little drier added to it, or boiled oil is used; but, as has been explained, boiled oil is not much Glazing J I used for priming coats. The special object of priming is to prevent the wood absorbing oil from the putty. Ordinary putty is a mixture of whiting (pulverized chalk) and raw Hnseed oil; some makers add about five per cent cotton oil, to increase the keeping quality; it is mixed to a stiff mass, like dough, by machinery; but, Hke dough, it can be equally well made by hand. Machine- made putty of the best quahty can be made and sold by the ton for three cents a pound; but it is almost impossible to buy good putty in the open market; marble dust is substituted for whiting, and rosin and mineral oil for the oil, and this putty is an injury to the consumer; it will not hold the glass in, it crumbles and falls out, and then the glass falls out and breaks, or if it is not allowed to go so far as that, it becomes necessary to take out the win- dow, clean off the old putty and replace it. The conditions have become so bad that good 72 House Painting retail dealers have their putty made by hand by their own employees. At three cents a pound, a dollar will buy enough to putty all the glass in an ordinary dwelling-house. The man who is having a house built will do well to provide in his contract that he may retain from the contract price the sum of one dollar per window for two years, to be forfeited if the putty crumbles in that time. Then the builder will be interested in the matter; he can prob- ably save only half a dollar on the whole house by buying inferior putty; and if this were gen- erally practiced, this nuisance of adulterated putty would shortly disappear. Good putty lasts a lifetime. White lead putty is too hard for setting win- dow glass; the glass may be broken, and then the putty must be removed, and it is very difficult to do this with white lead putty; but one-tenth white lead may be put in ordinary putty with advantage, as it makes it quicker Glazing 73 to dry. Putty is applied with a putty-knife, which has a steel blade about 3^ inches long and i^ inches wide at the end; some use a blade cut square across, others have the end beveled; it is purely a matter of habit; either will do the work. Plate glass is always cut with a glass-cutter's diamond; sheet glass may be cut with a dia- mond or with a wheel, which is a Cutting hardened steel wheel about an ^^^^^ eighth of an inch in diameter, with a sharp edge, set in a handle; the wheels are replace- able and may be bought separately, if the right kind of a holder is obtained. The operator has a little jar or wide-mouthed bottle of kero- sene before him, in which he dips the wheel before each cut; this is essential to the proper use of the wheel. It cuts sheet glass perfectly well; but the diamond makes a deeper cut, and is necessary for plate glass. The amateur will find it a help to lay a large 74 House Painting sheet of paper on the table, and with a rule make a pencil-mark where the edge of the pane of glass will come; then lay the piece of glass on it, put a straight-edge nearly over this pencil-mark, and with the straight-edge as a guide run the wheel over the glass; consider- able pressure must be used; a Httle practice will soon show how to do it. The professional will lay the sheet of glass over the opening in the sash, and with the edge of the sash to guide his eye will with a free-hand movement run the glass-cutter swiftly across, and the glass falls apart on exactly the right line. Before putting the glass in place the work- man spreads putty along the ledge on which it is to rest; this is called bedding the Bedding . . ^ glass, which is then pressed firmly into place and fastened there with little tri- angular bits of sheet zinc, called glaziers' points; these are put in from nine to twelve inches apart, and are laid flat on the glass Glazing 75 and driven into the wood of the sash, the implement used for driving being a two-inch chisel which is held with its flat side on the glass and the edge away from the glass; that is, with the back of the chisel down, so as not to scratch the glass. If the pane is smaller than the opening, it is so set that when the sash is in its proper position the pane will rest on the sash-bar below it; then there will be a crack between the pane and the \ Points sash on one or two sides, and the chisel is held vertically over this crack, and with its edge a crimp is made in the triangular zinc point (which has already been driven), so as to prevent the glass from sliding about. Zinc will readily bend, while steel will not, and this is the reason zinc is used for the purpose. These points are of various sizes: No. i are used for double-thick glass, No. 2 for the lighter glass. Fire-proof wooden sash are covered with thin sheet metal, and for use with 76 House Painting such sash steel slugs are made; these are triangular, ^ inch long, ^-^ wide at the wide end, and ^-^ inch thick; these are also used for plate glass. It is of importance to use enough points. When the glass is thus held in place, the rest of the putty is apphed. This may be done while the sash is in a horizontal position; but the professional sets the sash upon a sort of easel, putties the right-hand side and across the bottom with one motion of the arm, then reverses the sash and putties the other side and end. Sometimes, with soft-wood sash, bedding the glass is omitted, though wrongly so; but it is imperative for hard-wood Backing and metal-lined sash, and for all plate and crystal-plate glass. But in case the glass has not been bedded in putty, we crowd some putty into the crack between the glass and the sash on the indoors side; this is called Papering 77 backing the glass. Large panes of plate glass are not puttied, but are held in place with strips of molding nailed to the sash, and the crack between the glass and the molding is backed with putty. Papering, The first thing to be done is to clean the walls and ceiling. If there is old paper It must be removed; one layer of ^^^^^^^^ paper over another makes a thick before r 1 1 Papering coatmg; the paste of the outer layer does not come into contact with the lime of the wall, which would have a preservative effect, and so forms a breeding-place for germs of all sorts. To remove the old paper, first try stripping it off dry; often you may remove much of it this way. Then wet it with hot water, applying it with a wet cloth, a brush, or a sponge, as may be most convenient; but if it is a varnished or enameled paper it will be 78 House Painting well to put a handful of washing-soda (sal soda) in a quart of hot water and put it on with a brush or a swab, so as to keep the hands out of it; though it is not so very bad for the skin if not used too long. It may be necessary with a hard enameled paper to make scratches in the paper to let the water in; it is some- times quite a hard task to get such paper off. But in general when the paper is wet you may peel it off in large strips, and scrape off the remainder with an ordinary steel scraper; some recommend scraping with a piece of sheet zinc, as less liable to scratch the wall. Persistent wetting and scraping will get the paper off. Notice whether the paper sticks well to the wall; if it does, it will not be neces- sary to size the wall; if it comes off easily the wall must be sized. New walls do not need it. If the walls have been kalsomined or white- washed it is equally necessary to get the old material off, in the same general way as paper Papering 79 is removed; a scrubbing-brush is useful. If the wall is cracked or broken, it is necessary to repair it; this is usually done with plaster of paris; always try it before using; wet up a little with cold water, and see if it sets and becomes hard; if not, get some that is fresh. It must be mixed a Httle at a time and applied within ten minutes after the water is Repairing added to it. It may be put on with ^^^^® a trowel or, more commonly, with a putty- knife. The common method of filling cracks is to cut the sides of the crack until it becomes V-shaped, then wet the sides of it with water so that it will not absorb water from the plaster of paris, and then press the latter firmly into it. But a more thorough method is to cut the crack out so that the channel thus made will be wider at its bottom than at the surface of the wall; thus it holds the plaster of paris more securely. Large holes are first filled to within an eighth of an inch of the surface and allowed 8o House Painting to harden, and then filled flush; this is to avoid shrinkage. Whiting is powdered chalk; many mix this in equal quantity with plaster of paris, and wet it with glue-size; this mixture does not set quite as quickly as plaster alone. Size is made by soaking a pound of glue over-night in cold water; in the morning pour off the water, and, having the glue m a tm or enameled pail or pan, pour on it enough boihng water to make a gallon. Then stir immediately, and the glue will commonly dissolve at once. To this may be added two to four ounces of alum, previously dissolved in a little hot water. A common practice is to also add a quarter of a pound of any good bar-soap, which should have been cut into shavings to make it dis- solve easily. When the size is cold it is ready for use and is applied with a brush. It should be a thin jelly. If it appears to be too thick (glues differ in this) it may be thinned with Papering 8 1 cold water to a consistency suitable for use with a brush. As has been said, if the wall has been repeatedly papered before, and if the paper comes off very easily, it should be sized before papering, and the size allowed to dry. It may be well to say that one of the difficul- ties encountered by the amateur is the very quick drying of the paper on the wall. If it dries slowly, it may, if a mistake is made, be taken off and put on properly; that is, if in beginning to put on a piece it is found that a mistake is made, the end which has been put on may be moved to the right place; but if the work is going on in dry winter weather and the house is hot and dry, the paper must be put on exactly right the first thing, for it will dry enough so it will stick and tear. But if it is done in damp air in summer, when evapora- tion is slow, it is possible to be more deHberate, and this makes the work easier. 82 House Painting It has been said that size must be made and kept in metal vessels; this is because, if it is Care of put in a wooden pail, that pail will ^^^ probably never again be clean; and if the glue has begun to decompose in it, it will always be a source of trouble, and it may be of danger. The same is true of paste, and of kalsomine. Avoid wooden pails, and never let your brush stand over-night without thorough washing. Various unwise and ill- considered things at one time and anotherhave been said about danger to health from wall- paper; also from paint. The only objections to wall-paper are that it may be put on one layer over another, but this should never be done, and probably is not now often done; and, second, that it is a somewhat rough and porous material which holds dust. This is much less true of varnished or enameled paper. No doubt there is nothing so entirely sanitary as paint or varnish, which are in their nature Papering 83 non-absorbent and impervious, and which may be washed without injury. But the talk about people being poisoned by ar- senic in wall-paper is nonsense. In paper the first place, hardly any wall-paper colors contain arsenic; and if present it is there as a precipitate which is insoluble and non- volatile, and couldn't possibly do any harm if there were a hundred times as much. Further, while a large dose of arsenic is poisonous, a very small dose is not so. There are cities in this country, such as Butte, Montana, where there is so much arsenic in the dust floating in the air, from the smelter-smoke, that cats, who lick the dust off, poison themselves, and can- not live there, while dogs and horses are per- fectly healthy; and men, women, and children are just as healthy in these cities as they are anywhere else. Common salt is one of the necessities of life; yet a good-sized dose of it will cause vomiting, and no doubt an excessive 84 House Painting amount will cause death; but we do not call it a poison. If a room were painted with paris green, I do not believe enough arsenic could ever get into the air to be detected by the most exhaustive chemical analysis. The same may be said of the use of white lead; people using white lead, who are not of cleanly habits, are sometimes poisoned by it, — usually by eating their meals without washing their hands or beards; but that lead paint on the outside or inside of a house should be a source of danger, or should be other than entirely sanitary, is totally impossible; and, as Sancho Panza said, he that thinketh otherwise hath windmills in his head. The outfit which the amateur paper-hanger requires consists, in the first place, of four Needful boards about twelve inches wide ^"*^* and eight or ten feet long. Two of these boards should be planed smooth, as they are to serve as a table on which to spread the Papering 85 paste on the paper; the others are to make a platform on which to work. There should be something provided to support these about thirty inches from the floor; they may be on boxes or tables, — the height is that of an ordinary table, — or trestles or "horses " may be had. A couple of stout kitchen tables make a good support for the boards which are to be used as a platform. A carpenter's square is useful, and so is a yardstick. It is necessary to have a pair of long shears, twelve to sixteen inches long; these cost about a dollar and a half. The professionals also have a rotary-wheel cutter for trimming, but it is not necessary. A good paste-brush, about seven or eight inches wide, costing from one to two dollars, is necessary; and a smoothing- brush, which is a long, thin brush, about ten or twelve inches long (wide), is very desirable; this is for smoothing the paper on the wall; the work may be done with a dry, soft towel, 86 House Painting but the brush is very much better; it costs seventy-five cents to a dollar. A clothes-brush may be used, in emergency. An eight-inch cloth-covered roller is also used for this; but a good brush is almost indispensable, and is all that is really necessary. To smooth dov^n the seams a seam-roller is used; this is about an inch v^ide, vs^ith a rounded face; a smooth bed- caster v^ill ansv^er, but is not so convenient. This is to roll down the seams after they are partly dry. Flour paste is commonly used, and is the best; it is made by putting three pints of w^heat flour in two quarts of cold water, and rubbing it until it is smooth and free from lumps. Then add to it eight quarts of boihng water (not merely hot, Paste but actually boihng), and boil slowly with continual stirring for ten minutes. It is necessary to be particular about stirring it, or it will burn on the bottom. When it is cold, sprinkle in with thorough stirring two Papering 87 tablespoonfuls of powdered alum. This will be about right, but if it should be too thick it may be thinned with a little cold water. Use cold. The best dish for making and using it is a large oval dishpan. Never put paste in a wooden pail, or in anything rusty. Wash out the paste-brush every night; do not leave it in the paste over-night. Only one edge of the paper is to be trimmed. Some of the professionals trim the paper first; the man sits in a chair with his legs stretched out before him, and lets the roll of paper lie on his up- turned feet; as he draws it up into his lap he trims it with the shears, and with Trimming practice does this very rapidly. But the more common way is to cut the paper into suitable lengths first, and then spread the paste on one of these pieces, applying it to one end of the paper first, and when about half the piece is pasted, fold the end over toward the center, being particular 88 House Painting to have the sides and edges exactly even. Then apply the paste to the other half, and in Hke manner fold that end toward the center. Then proceed to trim; the advantage of doing it this way is that the paste gets distributed to the edges perfectly even and clean, and you trim two thicknesses of paper at once. Wall-paper comes in rolls, eighteen inches wide, and a conventional roll is eight yards Size of long; but in fact it is always sold in ^®^^® double rolls of sixteen yards ; but the price is usually made on the single-roll basis, so if you buy twenty rolls you get ten pieces of paper each sixteenyards long, each piece rolled up in one (double) roll. To estimate how much you need, you are to measure the area to be covered; measure the total length of the wall, adding up the four or more sides, and multiply this by the height; then figure up the area of the doors and windows and take that out; this gives the total number of square Papering 89 feet of wall to be covered. Each single roll has an area of thirty-six square feet; but there will be waste in matching the pattern, so it is not safe to call a single roll more than thirty square feet, or sixty square feet for a double roll; and with patterns which are difficult to match, even this may be too much to allow for a roll. The ceiHng is measured in the same way, and it must be remembered that the ceiUng paper must in all cases come down on the side wall a few inches, at least two inches, not only on the ends of the pieces but also on the sides; so in putting up the first piece of ceiling paper it must be turned down on the sfde wall as well as at the ends of the length of paper. The ceiling is always to be papered first, then the walls, and the border is put on last. Before beginning at the ceiling papering unroll the paper, face up, and cut ^ ^^'^'""^ it into suitable lengths, allowing enough QO House Painting for the ends to turn down, and match the pattern, so that it will go on right; you cannot match the pattern after you have the paste on. Having cut and matched enough to cover the ceiling you may begin, applying the paste and trimming as has been described. In order to have the first piece on straight, it will be well to draw a straight horizontal line on the side wall about two inches below the ceiHng; you may do this by driving two nails in the wall the right distance below the ceiling, one near each corner of the room, and attach a cord from one to the other; rub the cord with colored chalk or charcoal, and snap it against the wall. Then you may do the same thing on the ceiling, making the chalk-mark sixteen inches from the wall; as the paper is eighteen inches wide, it will cover the space between these two lines. One line will do; the one on the ceiling is the more convenient. When all is ready, take the first piece of Papering 91 paper, which is folded over upon itself as has been described; get up on your platform, which should be high enough so that your head is six inches below the ceiling; begin in the right-hand corner of the room (that is, the corner where, if you stand facing the wall along which the length of the ceiling paper is to go, the corner will then be at your right hand); unfold the end of the paper which you begin with, hold it over your head, and let the other end, which is still folded, hang down behind you; attach the paper to the ceiling, first with your hand, and then smooth it out with your smoothing-brush. This first piece is the most difficult in the whole job, as you have only the chalk-line for your guide, and it must come down on the wall a little. When you have got half of it on, you will unfold the other half and put it up. After that you have the edge of the last piece for your guide, and have only to look out for matching the pattern. 92 House Painting When the last piece is up, its edge comes down on the other side wall. After you have papered the ceiling you will probably feel that you do not need any further advice about paper-hanging. The Papering . the pieces of paper which you cut for the side wall should be a little longer than the height they are to cover, say four to six inches; you will of course match the paper when you cut it up, and if the pattern is large you will waste considerable paper, but that cannot be helped; often a foot in a length will be cut off and thrown away. The top will be covered with the border, so it is not important to have it even; but often no border is used, and then it is quite a particular job to have the paper cut so that the pattern matches exactly, and you will need the carpenter's square to cut the ends exactly true. The bottom will hang below the top of the base-board, and with the back of the shears you will make a Papering 93 crease in the damp paper at the top of the base-board; then cut it off as thus marked. It is usual to begin papering the wall by starting at the side of a door; this gives a vertical Hne, easy to fit, and and , . . 1 -n 1 Windows makes it certain that you w^ill have to cut paper to fit not more than one side of that door. It is common practice for paper-hangers to begin anev^ at the right-hand side of each door and w^indovs^, and leave the short pieces over the doors and over and under the windov^s to be done last; do not ever tolerate this; and if you are making a bargain with a paper- hanger always mention this point. Otherwise you will have mismatched paper at every one of these places. It takes more paper and more time to do it right, but you should con- sider that all you put the paper on for at all is to have it look well, and if you have got to see a botched job every day for two or three 94 House Painting years, — often wall-paper lasts ten years and sometimes fifty, — it pays to do it right in the first place. When you come to a window, go on and match the paper carefully over and under it, and when you get to the other side of the window probably you will have to cut a long piece in two lengthwise to bring the pat- tern right; but then it will be right, and you will always have the satisfaction of knowing it, and so will other people. And this leads me to say that in ordering paper, after you have made reasonable allowances for waste, it is always well to buy at least one double roll extra for just such emergencies as this, which you cannot foresee. Besides, you may spoil a piece occasionally. Paper doesn't cost much ; it is the labor that counts. It is a griev- ous thing to have to say, however, that if you bargain with a paper-hanger to do the job and let him buy the paper for you (after you select it), as is a common custom, you must Papering - 95 look out that he does not leave three or four double rolls extra on your hands, merely because he gets a commission of twenty-five to forty per cent on it. Generally you can bargain to have all full double rolls taken back and have the cash returned. You may be told that you will need some extra paper for occasional repairs; well, practically you won't. It is not often that patching is done; paper begins to fade as soon as it is applied, and a new piece of the same paper used as a patch shows about as much as though it were a different paper. It is well to know that you can sometimes clean wall-paper, especially ceiUngs which have become smoked; this is done ^^^^^^^^ with a handful of unbaked dough, Wall to which the dirt will stick. What I always use is the moist, soft part of a loaf of fresh bread, just baked; with it a ceiHng can be cleaned so as to look and be as good 96 House Paniting as new, and it is not a difficult thing to do. Moldings and ornaments can be cleaned the same way. In putting on the border, which is the last part of the paper-hanging, do not begin in a corner; start a few inches back from the cor- ner, and then you can make a smooth corner job. Whitewashing. Whitewash is made from lime; for this pur- pose the lime should be in hard lumps, not How to such as has been long exposed to ,„^./ the air and become air-slaked. White- wash The U. S. Lighthouse Board recipe for making whitewash says that we may slake half a bushel of lime in boiling water, keeping it covered during the process to keep in the steam; but here it may be said that the more common practice is to put cold water on the lime, not enough to drown it, but slowly add as much as the lime will take up; it will Whitewashing 97 generate plenty of heat, and steam will come off; keep adding water slowly, and finally the lime will crumble and become a loose white mass, to which enough water is added to make it a paste, and this is to be stirred with a stick until it begins to cool; this indicates that it has combined with all the water it will take. Some lime is much slower about this than other, because all limestone, from which lime is made, is not of the same chemical composi- tion. There is no objection to using hot water, which will start it more quickly. It is then thinned with water to a thin paste, and put through a strainer, as there are often lumps and dirt in it. Now we go back to the recipe. Add to the strained lime paste a peck of salt (about fifteen pounds), previously dissolved in hot water; boil three pounds of rice to a thin paste, strain it, and stir it in while the whole is hot; have a pound of good glue dissolved 98 House Painting by soaking it the night before in cold water, then pour off the extra water and pour on to it three or four quarts of boihng water and stir it, and it will dissolve; in this glue solution stir half a pound of whiting (which is pulverized chalk), and add this glue and whiting mixture to the lime and salt. The glue may be dissolved without previous soaking in a large glue-pot, or in an oat- meal cooking-pot, or in a small pot hung in a larger pot filled with boihng water; but the method first described is best. After all these ingredients are stirred in, add five gallons of hot water, stir well, and let it stand for a few days, covered from dirt. It is to be appKed hot. It is estimated that a pint of this mixture will cover a square yard of sur- face. This is undoubtedly a good whitewash. The most common whitewash is made by slaking the Hme with water as described, then thinning it with more water and straining it. Whitewashing 99 It is probably not desirable to add glue to it if it is to be used in cellars, but the rice would be less objectionable; in place of Extra rice, flour may be used, either ^®°^®° ' J ing wheat, rye, or buckwheat, but not Material corn meal; rice is most nearly white. The lime combines with the proteid matter of the rice or flour to make a cement, and this makes it adhere better. In some places it is the prac- tice to thin the whitewash with sweet skim- milk; this acts in the same way and is excellent for outdoor work, as it stands the weather well; the lime unites with the casein of the milk to make a cement. This is not suitable for cellars, but is all right for dry places. Whitewash, as everyone knows, is appHed with a wide, flat brush; the operator does not rub it on, as the painter does How to paint, but lightly brushes over the ^^l^^_ wall or ceiling with the brush so as wash to use the ends of the bristles, not bearing on 100 House Painting enough to bend over the bristles so that a great part of their length will touch the wall. The brush is held lightly; the arm is not stiff, but bends freely at the elbow; the whole action should show flexibiHty and freedom. This is equally true of kalsomining, which is only a variety of whitewashing. In whitewashing a ceiling it is well for the operator to begin on the side next the windows, so as to be work- ing away from the light. The floor should be covered with canvas or building-paper, as lime-stains are difficult to remove. Before beginning work the wall or ceiling to be treated should be thoroughly cleaned; old whitewash should be washed off*, scrubbing it with a brush if necessary; and if it is a place where the good appearance is important, as in a room, stains should be removed or covered up, as will be described under the subject of Kalsomine. Whitewash is the most purely white coating known; and Whitewashing lOI it is sanitary, as the lime has a purifying action, kills germs, and does not act as a medium for their growth. It is on this account a good coating for cellar-walls and the like, also for the interior of stables and outbuildings in general. It may be colored with any pigments which are not attacked by lime; a yellow or cream color colors for is obtained by adding yellow ocher; Whitewash it will mix with any of the iron oxides, as Venetian red or Indian red, also with umber and sienna; and tints may be obtained with mixtures of these, with or without lampblack, as described in speaking of oil paints. Bright yellow and green cannot be made, but various dull colors are available. How- ever, whitewash is generally white; and although the directions of the U.S. Lighthouse Board say to apply it hot, that is intended to apply only to the rather complex mixture which they recommend; common whitewash 102 House Painting is used cold. It is not unusual to put a little carbolic acid in it for use in cellars, stables, and the like. Whitewash brushes should be washed out immediately after using, as the caustic lime is not good for them. To determine Testing how thick whitewash should be, it is customary to brush out a little of it on a piece of well-sized paper, which can be dried quickly; this will show if it covers sufficiently; if it is too thick the coating will look coarse and sandy. Kalsomining. Kalsomine, or calcimine, is much Hke white- wash; it is a water-paint, having a Hme as a Kalsomine: base; but whereas whitewash is a How Made j^jxture of fresh, caustic water- slaked lime with water, and has enough adhe- sive quality to make it stick by itself fairly well, kalsomine is made of the carbonate of Kalsomining 1 03 lime, or chalk ground to a line powder and known as whiting, Paris white, or Spanish white, mixed not with pure water but with size, or a thin solution of glue, which is the binder. To make it, fifteen or twenty pounds of whiting are mixed with water enough to make a thick paste; half a pound of good white glue, which has previously been dissolved in water by the method already described, is added to it, and enough hot water is then added to make about one-fifth as many gallons as there are pounds of whiting; that is, five pounds of whit- ing make a gallon of kalsomine. When cool it will be a jelly, and is then ready for applica- tion. If it is desired to have it tinted, the color must be mixed with enough water to make a thin fluid and added to the whiting before the glue is added; at least, this is the best way, though it is often put into the hot kalsomine after it is finished, because then the color may be judged by painting out a little 104 House Painting on a piece of paper and drying it. The color is darker when wet, and can only be judged when dry. At the same time the operator can tell if enough glue has been put in so that the kalsomine will not rub off; different kinds of glue differ in strength. If a pure white is desired, it is not uncommon to add a little ultramarine, to correct the slightly yellowish tint which would otherwise be present. Kalsomine is applied with a wide brush, Hke whitewash; and if the wall is stained, it ^ must be treated in some way to Prepara- ^ tion of remove or cover up the stain; this is like the preparation for white- washing. First remove all old kalsomine, whitewash, or paper; then wash the wall well with soda solution, then with clean warm water; if any stains remain they may be covered with a coat of shellac varnish; many advise painting the whole surface with an oil paint, the only objection to which is Kalsomtning 105 its cost and the time required. I have found an efficient covering for spots to be a co;^t of aluminum paint, v^hich is nearly white, absolutely opaque, dries quickly, and adheres to anything, but is rather costly except for small spots. If it is used, it should be the sort v^hich has a pungent smell of bananas; aluminum paint is sometimes made vs^ith a rosin size, which is not so good. After "killing" the stains, it is usual to apply a coat of size to the wall, as if for paper- ing; this keeps the kalsomine from striking in and being spotty. A soap and alum size is also recommended; enough soap is dis- solved in hot water to be, when cold, a jelly, and this is rubbed well into the wall with a stiff brush; after a day's drying a solution of alum, a pound to a gallon of water, is applied in liberal quantity; this makes an insoluble alum soap; and this should be allowed a day to dry. Io6 House Painting Since the lime in kalsomine is in the form of carbonate, and not caustic, it is possible to Fresco; use a wide range of pigments to Distemper ^|^^^. ^^ ^^j^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^j^^ ^^jj or ceiling has been kalsomined, it is possible to decorate it with figures or borders, using, as paint, kalsomine of suitable colors; this is called frescoing. The English name for this kind of paint is distemper; and these fresco or distemper paints are often sold in bottles or jars ready for use, containing some preserva- tive to prevent decomposition of the glue or other binding materials. Kalsomine is sold, ready mixed, in pack- ages; these are emptied into hot water, stirred until the glue is dissolved, then allowed to cool before using. Recently kalsomine has been put on the market which dissolves in cold water and is ready to use at once; this is very convenient and satisfactory. A much greater variety of Kahomining loj color effects can be had with kalsomine than with whitewash, and it has a softer and smoother appearance, free from the somewhat rough and sandy look of whitewash, especially when put on a little too thick; but it has not the antiseptic quahties of the latter. White- wash costs almost nothing; it is sanitary, easily applied, may be so made as to resist the weather tolerably well, and is and always will be the paint for themilHon. Kalsomine is used almost solely for its artistic effect, in which it is equaled only (if at all) by the most costly enamel painting. On plain work it is easily applied, but it also lends itself to display the highest skill of the artist. Some of the most celebrated pictures in the world are fresco paintings. Io8 House Paint i ng Cold- Water Paints. These are related both to whitewash and to kalsomine; to the former because they contain quicklime, and to the latter because Casein they contain a glue-Hke cementing material. The cement is casein which is obtained from milk. Milk consists of water, sugar, casein, and fat (butter), the last three in about equal proportions. When the butter is removed the casein may be precipitated, purified, and dried, and it is on the market as a white powder, soluble in a solution of any alkali in water. In the early days of cold- water paints borax was used; but this was a failure, because the compound formed by it and casein was not altogether insoluble when dry. Now the casein is mixed with lime; when water is added to this mixture the casein first dissolves in the lime-water, then it com- Cold- Water Paints log bines chemically with more lime, and this lime and casein compound, when dry, is insoluble and is a cement of considerable strength. As the paint is put up in dry form, it is a powder containing, like kalsomine, whiting and color- ing matter, and the proper amount of casein and powdered quicklime, the latter two tak- ing the place of the glue in kalsomine. Casein and lime cement has long been known; it has been used as a cement for crockery and the like. The direc- Casein tions formerly given (before the ^®"^®°* modern methods for making casein were invented) were to knead and wash cheese with water until all the fat was removed and the residue was white and crumbly; mix this with cream of lime (lime slaked and mixed with enough water to be of the consistence of cream) enough to make a paste; apply at once. This makes a very strong and water-proof cement. The casein now made is prepared in a very no House Painti "<^ different way, and is chemically a somewhat different substance; but it makes a cement with lime, and resists water well. The paint thus made is practically incombustible; casein may be destroyed by fire, but it is, when dry, a substance much like glue, and can hardly be regarded as combustible; and the Hme and pigment are not at all so. It offers a sensible resistance to fire. It is not washed off by rain, and is in that sense weather-proof; but it is of an open and porous structure, and does not prevent moisture from reaching Casein the surface to which it is applied. As it contains free lime, like white- wash, it is impracticable to get such a variety of colors, or such brilliant or delicate ones, as with kalsomine; moreover, it is of a coarse texture, as compared with the latter, and is not as suitable for interior work. It is liable to mold and to decomposition if used in very damp places, as in cellars and the like. Cold- Water Paints III Some three and a half centuries ago, Vasari, a celebrated writer and fresco painter, in his "Lives of the Painters" told the story of a painter named Paolo UceUi, who was em- ployed to decorate with mural paintings the walls and ceilings of some public rooms in a monastery. In addition to certain small daily wages he was provided with board and lodg- ing; but the thrifty monks, though they them- selves had an ample diet, kept him for the most part on soup and bread and cheese. He was practically a prisoner; but one day he ran away, and for a long time eluded the pursuit of the monks, who, being fat and well-fed, were easily out-run by the thin and long-legged artist. But they hit on the device of sending in pursuit some of the young men who had recently come to the monastery to prepare for admission, and they at length captured him and brought kim back. When reproached with his breach of contract heexplained that as 112 House Painting he was working with lime-washes and paints and living on cheese, he feared and indeed believed that he had symptoms that he was turning into cement. So to get the pictures done they had to give him a more varied supply of food. INDEX PAGE Active and inactive pigments 29 Amount painted per day 30 Arsenic 83 Backing of glass 77 Barytes 10 Bedding glass 74? 76 Benzine 4, 6 Blanc fixe 10 Black pigments 12 Blistering 56 Blue pigments 11 Boiled oil i> 55? 7° Border, wall paper 89, 92, 96 Breaking paint 7 Bridle 13 Brushes 12, 85 care of 16, 87 for waxing floors 65 paste 85 renovating 18 smoothing 85 wire 16 113 1 14 Index PAGB Brush-safe 16 Burning-off 57 Calcimine 102 Camel's hair brushes 15 Canvas roofs 32 Care of brushes 16, 87 Carriage painting 53 Casein cement 109 paints 108 Caustic soda 68 Ceilings, papering 89 China clay 11 Cleaning metal 34 wall paper 95 walls 77 Cold water paint 108 Color mixtures 24 Concentrated lye 68 Cornice 30 Cost of paint 25 Cotton oil, in putty 71 Cracks in varnish 52, 54 walls 79 Creosote 31 Crystal plate glass 70 Cylinder glass 68 Cypress 22 Damar varnish 41 Diamond, to cut glass 73 Index 115 PAGE Distemper 106 Doors and windows, in papering 93 frames t,t, Drier i Drying of paint 39 varnish 46 Dusting brushes 15 Dyeing wood 59 Elastic undercoat cracks 52, 54 Enamel paint 3^^ 3^ Exterior varnisliLng 49 Fillers 47,51 Filling cracks in walls 79 Fire-proof paint 32 Flatting 4,38,56 Floor finishing 61 paint 61 hardener 61 varnish 63 wax 65 Floors, cleaning 67, 68 filling 63 Flour paste 86 French zinc 9 Fresco painting 106 Gallon 6 Galvanized iron 31 Glass, cutting 73 Il6 Index PAGE Glass, crystal plate 70 double thick 69 plate 70, 77 qualities of 69 sheet or cylinder 68 single thick 69 sizes 69 window 68 Glazier's points 68 Glazing 68 Gloss paint 36 Glue, in whitewash 97 to dissolve 98 Grain of wood 46 Graphite 35 Insects, avoided by varnishing . . . ; 66 Interior finish, novel 59 painting 36 Japan i Kalsomine 102 Knots 19 Lead and zinc mixtures 23 sulphate 8 white 5,7 Lime, to slake 96 Linoxyn 2 Liquid filler 51 Lithopone 10 Index iij PAGE Matching paper c,2 Milk in whitewash gg Mirror plate yo Mixed paint ^ 27 Novel interior finish en Ocher j j Oil, boiled i, 55, 70 darkens wood 48, 63 drying of 2 ^^^ I, 6, 55, 70 weight of 6 Oleo-resinous varnish 42 Oxalic acid 6y Painter's torch ^8 Paint, for floors 61 japan j mixed 6 j remover 19, 58, 67 sanitary qualities of 82 Painting on plaster ^g Paper-hangers outfit 84 Papering yy ceilings 89 side-walls 02 Paper, to trim 87 Paste 86 brush 85 filler 47 white lead 6 Il8 Index PAGE Peeling, of paint 57 Piazza floors t^t^ Pine, southern 20, 57 Plaster of paris 79 Plate glass 70, 77 Points, glazier's 74 Polishing floors 65 Putty 71 knife 73 white lead 37> 72 Puttying 23, 37 Priming coat 20, 37, 55, 70 Raw oil I, 6, 55, 70 Red lead 35 pigments 11,12 Redwood 21 Removing stains 67, 104 paint and varnish 58, 67, 68 wall paper 77 Repainting 57 Rice in whitewash 97 Roller, seam 86 Rolls of wall paper 88 Rubbing varnish 48 Sal soda 67, 78 Salt, in whitewash 97 Sash tools 14 Seam roller 86 Sheet glass 68 Index 119 PAGE Shellac, as interior varnish 50 for floors 64 how applied 50 removed 67 varnish 40 white 40 Side wall, to paper 92 Size, how made 80, 105 Sizing 40, 78, 81, 105 Slaking lime 96 Slugs 76 Smoothing brush 85 Southern pine 20, 57 Spar varnish 49 Spirit varnish 4° Sponge test for varnish 45 Spotting 56 Spreading capacity of paint 29 Stain 47 Staining window sash 47 Stains, how removed 67, 104 Stopping knots i9> 37 Structural metal, painting 34 Sublimed lead 8 Terra alba 11 Testing whitewash 102 Test for varnish 45 Thick or thin coats 27 Tin roofs « . . . 3^ 120 Index PAGE Trim 30 Trimming wall paper 87 Turpentine 3, 6, 7, 44 Varnish, how made 40, 43 oleo-resinous 42 paints 36, 38 remover 19, 58, 67 shellac 40 spar 49 spirit 40 test for 45 to rub 48 various qualities 44 Wall paper, how measured ^2> paste 86 poisoning by 83 sanitary qualities of 77, 82 to clean 95 remove 77 Wall shingles 31 Washing soda 67, 78 Waste in wall paper 94 Wax for floors 65 Weight of lead paint 6 oil 6 turpentine 6 zinc paint 9 Wheel to cut glass 73 Index 121 PAGE White lead 5 poisoning 84 putty 37, 72 White shellac 40 Whitewash, how made 96, 98 Whitewashing 96, 99 White zinc 9 Whiting II, 71, 103 Window glass 68 Wire brushes 16 brushing 57 Wood filler 47> 51 open or close grained 46 Yellow pigments 11 Zinc and lead mixtures 23 Zinc-lead 9 Zinc white 9 JUL 23 1906