378 



SELLING LUMBER 



Wooden 

 Houses 

 Good for a 

 Century 



Well-Seasoned 

 Wood Takes 

 Paint Best 



Painting and Finishing 

 Southern Yellow Pine 



(Exterior and Interior) 



By Henry A. Gardner 



Associate Director, The Institute of Industrial 



Research 

 Washington, D. C. 



General considerations : The structural materials expert will 

 admit that nearly all kinds of building materials (cement, iron, and 

 wood) require that decoration or protection which is obtainable only 

 through the use of paint. This is especially true of lumber, the 

 painting of which is to be discussed herein. The advocates of this 

 material advance as one of their arguments for its continued use 

 the fact that frame dwellings are generally lower in cost than those 

 made of other materials, and are therefore within the reach of the 

 average person. They also refer to the highly decorative appear- 

 ance of painted wooden houses, which will generally last for a hun- 

 dred years or longer, provided a coat of paint is applied every five 

 or six years. Such statements as to the durability of painted wood 

 are founded upon fact, for tests have shown that moisture and 

 fungi, the two most active agents of wood decay, are kept from 

 wood by the sealing action of paint. 



Lumber that has been well seasoned is, of course, in the most 

 receptive condition for paint, as it allows deep penetration of the 

 priming liquids which form the bonding coat. Moreover, on ac- 

 count of the volume changes which take place in every known spe- 

 cies of structural wood, the application of paint before seasoning 

 is apt to result in a form of surface-cracking that is objectionable. 

 It is, however, bad practice to allow completed frame structures a 

 very long period of seasoning before painting. The very purpose 

 of applying paint to timber is to prevent the accumulation of dirt 

 and to protect the wood from the destroying fungi that assert their 

 presence in the form of deep-seated stains. It is advisable, there- 

 fore, to apply a thin priming coat and a medium body coat of paint 

 to all wooden structures soon after erection. If these coats arc 

 thin, well brushed out, and allowed sufficient time to dry, the wood 

 will be coated with a film possessing what might be referred to as 



