CHAPTER XIV 

 WASHINGTON PAINT TESTS 



THE new vehicle test fence at Washington is fully described 

 in the writer's paper l as presented before the American Society 

 for Testing Materials, as follows: 



" The high price attained by linseed oil during the past two 

 years of over a dollar a gallon, together with the unusual scarcity 

 of this valuable oil, has led many investigators into the field of 

 research, with a view of discovering some mixture of other oils to 

 partly replace linseed oil. Many valuable contributions to oil 

 technology have resulted, but the makers and users of paints have 

 wisely demanded specific and authoritative information as to the 

 practical value of proposed mixtures before adopting them. The 

 Institute of Industrial Research, at the request of the Paint 

 Manufacturers' Association of the United States, has recently 

 started a series of practical paint vehicle tests designed to decide 

 the question at issue. 



" Forty-eight white-pine panels have been placed upon a test 

 frame on the grounds of the new laboratory building of the Insti- 

 tute, at Washington, D. C. They are painted with a standard 

 white pigment formula reduced with a different oil formula for 

 every panel. White-pine panels were selected for the test on 

 account of the good painting surface which this type of lumber 

 presents; the grade selected was free from knots or pitch pockets 

 defects which often ruin a paint test. Each panel was con- 

 structed of four tongued-and-grooved planed boards, 22 inches 

 long, 1 inch thick, and 9 inches wide. The boards were leaded 

 together and capped at the sides with weather strips, making the 

 finished panels about 2 feet wide and 3 feet high. The fence 

 upon which the panels were placed was constructed of 4-inch 

 squared yellow pine with open framework, allowing the panels 



1 The Practical Testing of Drying and Semi-Drying Paint Oils, by Henry 

 A. Gardner. Paper presented at Fourteenth Annual Meeting, Amer. Soc. 

 for Test. Mater., Atlantic City, N.J., June, 1911. 



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