42 
House & Gar den 
FACTS ABOUT PAINTS, STAINS AND VARNISH 
Things You Should Know Before Ap'plying Any of These Mixtures, 
and Why You Should Know Them 
O UT of doors painting is best done about 
mid-spring, and the next best time is 
early fall. In the spring the air is drier and 
the temperature most conducive to good results. 
In late spring, many flies and other small fly¬ 
ing things are likely to stick to the wet paint 
and mar its surface, so where there is a choice 
the work should be done before that time. 
Paint thickens quickly in cold weather and 
is apt to crackle with hair lines not long after 
it is laid-on, or will even tend to flake before 
it is old. Winter painting, therefore, is inad¬ 
visable. Paint put on in summer, on the other 
hand, is often blistered and drawn by the sun’s 
heat before it is thoroughly dry. In autumn, 
the season remaining to be considered, the air 
is damper than in spring, paint takes longer 
to dry, and must often be helped by adding a 
considerable quantity of drier to the paint 
mixture. 
Before painting anew, burn off the old sur¬ 
face to be painted, wherever the old coat shows 
blisters, lumps, crackles or roughness, or is at 
all flaky or loose. Then sandpaper the sur¬ 
face smooth; otherwise the new work had bet¬ 
ter be left undone. 
T he best way to remove old paint indoors 
is to burn off, scrape and sandpaper the 
surface quite smooth. For a good piece of 
work it is absolutely necessary to have a per¬ 
fectly smooth surface before applying the first 
coat of new paint. Don’t attempt to put on 
new paint over old if there is any indication of 
looseness or flaking anywhere on the old sur¬ 
faces. All such places, at least, must be scraped 
or burned and sandpapered first. Otherwise 
the new coat will be blotchy and likely to flake. 
If old paint is removed with any sort of ace¬ 
tone paint remover, instead of by burning and 
scraping, the surface of the wood must be 
washed afterwards with some alkaline solution 
such as washing soda or ammonia in water. 
Otherwise the paint remover permeates the sur¬ 
face of the wood and is apt to set up some 
chemical reaction in the new paint which may 
prove partially disintegrating or produce dis¬ 
coloration. 
T hree good coats of paint are necessary 
for new wood out of doors. Allow each 
coat to dry thoroughly before putting on the 
next. Two good coats will be sufficient on 
wood previously painted and whose texture is 
consequently “filled”. 
For new wood, the first or priming coat 
should not be stinted of an ample allowance of’ 
white lead which gives body and acts as a filler. 
Remember that whatever the nature of the first 
coat, much of it will soak into the wood. For 
the priming coat on exterior metal surfaces it 
is advisable to use red lead. 
When painting new pine, or other woods in 
which there is any appreciable residuary sap 
or resin, shellac the wood before painting. 
Otherwise the stain from the sap or resin, espe¬ 
cially where open grains or pits and knots oc¬ 
cur, will eventually show through the paint and 
produce a brownish stain. A good priming of 
shellac will prevent this. 
In rooms where painting is to be done the 
air should be perfectly dry and the temperature 
F. F. CARTER 
moderate—neither too warm nor too cold. An 
absence of dust, too, is obviously desirable. 
The ground or priming coat, with a good 
white lead body, should be laid on thick and 
well brushed out so that no brush marks nor 
other inequalities of surface occur to roughen 
later coats. 
T O get a good satin finish it is necessary to 
have a priming coat and three following 
coats. The second, third and fourth coats, 
when thoroughly dry, should be rubbed down 
with powdered pumice stone—not scoured, but 
rubbed down evenly. Powered pumice mois¬ 
tened with water tends to produce a higher 
gloss than when moistened with a little boiled 
linseed oil. When oil is used for this purpose, 
care must be taken to use very little so that the 
body of the paint may not be moved by it. 
For a good gloss or enamel finish four coats 
are necessary after the priming coat has been 
laid. For a thoroughly good piece of work, 
these last coats, also, should be rubbed down. 
Painted floors, to ensure durable and satis¬ 
factory results, should be covered with deck 
paint that has a surface both hard and elastic, 
or else given a coat of the dull spar varnish, 
which possesses the same qualities, and can be 
relied upon to wear. 
To clean paint do not scrub nor scour it with 
soap and water and a brush. The back of the 
brush will dent and bruise the surface and the 
scouring will eventually injure and deaden it. 
Use a soft rag and a weak alkaline solution. 
The best results will be secured and the surface 
maintained uninjured by using the following 
proportions—a tablespoonful of household am¬ 
monia to a bucketful of tepid water or a table¬ 
spoonful of washing soda to a gallon of tepid 
water. 
T he only valid excuse for staining exterior 
woodwork is any coloration that may in¬ 
evitably attend the application of some kind 
of preservative. Otherwise the weather will 
achieve, in a short time, more pleasing and dur¬ 
able results than can be produced by artificial 
means. 
To stain new shingles or clapboards a silver 
gray to match old weathered shingles or clap¬ 
boards, dip them in a thick, creamy whitewash 
solution, let them dry, and then fix them in 
place. The weather will then very soon remove 
the excess of lime and reduce the new wood to 
uniform color with the old. The action of the 
weather may be accelerated by an occasional 
hosing. This method sounds a bit clumsy but 
has been employed by able architects with thor¬ 
oughly satisfactory results where a chemical 
stain would have produced an ultimate dis¬ 
parity in color. 
Spar varnish for outside unpainted wood¬ 
work is a thoroughly weatherproof and durable 
protective covering. This is the varnish used 
for exterior ship woodwork—Whence the name. 
It has an amber tinge of its own, besides its 
high polish, which must be taken into account. 
A similar dull varnish, with the same kind of 
tough weatherproof body, can be had when 
desired. 
To remove varnishes from wood, apply wood 
alcohol to the surface and then wipe off or 
scrape the loosened varnish. To remove stain 
apply a solution of oxalic acid or use vinegar. 
Caustic soda is apt to be too severe and pro¬ 
duce burns or excessive bleaching. 
Isolated spots or stains on natural wood may 
be removed by oxalic acid in successive slight 
applications rather than in one severe applica¬ 
tion which is apt to result in bleaching too 
much at one time. 
O IL applied to the natural wood emphasizes 
and brings out the natural contrast and 
figures of the grain. If the wood is very close- 
grained, the' addition of a little dark powdered 
pigment to the oil will serve to accentuate the 
markings. 
The best recipe for natural wood—paneling, 
architectural trim or furniture—that is to have 
some kind of dressing is the old English dictum 
bidding us “feed the wood with oil and polish 
it with wax.” This advice, though intended 
originally for oak, is equally applicable to other 
woods. Poppy oil was frequently used in 
England, but linseed oil does quite as well and 
is more practicable for common use. 
On a surface cleaned and free of dust apply 
raw or unboiled linseed oil thinned ,with ben¬ 
zine. The oil alone is too thick and tends to 
become gummy, the benzine accelerates drying. 
After twenty-four hours, carefully wipe off 
every remaining trace of oil or “sweat” with 
woolen rags or cheesecloth. Then apply the 
wax, a little at a time, working it into the sur¬ 
face with a stiff brush. Brush first with the 
grain, then across it. Next apply a little wax at 
a time on a woolen rag and rub small sections 
with a circular motion. The wax mixture 
should be prepared by melting a lump of bees¬ 
wax of sufficient size in a pint of turpentine 
over a slow fire. When cool the mixture should 
be of a thick, creamy consistency. The com¬ 
mercial preparations answer well for this pur¬ 
pose. 
Oak waxed only, without previous oiling, 
shows the pithy portions of the surface dark 
and the grain light. Oak oiled first and then 
waxed shows the reverse effect. 
T O preserve the natural tone of the wood 
and yet secure a polish, successive coats 
of white shellac may be applied and rubbed 
down well with powdered pumice stone. This 
is virtually the process for producing a “French 
polish,” but need not have an unpleasantly 
high gloss. 
Fumed, oiled and waxed, or stained wood¬ 
work needs air and light to maintain it in good 
condition and give it life. So important is this 
that some of the greatest furniture connoisseurs 
are most solicitous about ventilation for their 
collections. 
Fuming with ammonia fumes will darken 
wood and may be made either to change its 
color somewhat or to produce a premature effect 
of age; the latter, however, is apt to be too uni¬ 
form to be wholly pleasant. In the case of red 
oak for floors, fuming is advisable as it pro¬ 
duces a uniform agreeable brown tone and 
penetrates the wood to a greater depth than 
stain, and hence wears better. The tone can 
be regulated by the length of time the wood 
is exposed to the fumes. 
