The next coats, after the work is well puttied, should be made to dry flat and hard. Two coats should be applied, and, for all ordinary jobs or cheap work, sand-papering is all that is necessary for each coat; but when a good surface is required, I would recommend one coat to be put on heavy enough to fill the grain; and before being set, scrape with a steel scraper. The plain surface is all that requires coating and scraping with the heavy mixture. For this coat, which is called filling, use one-half ground lead and any good mineral which experience has shown can be relied on. This scraping of the panel work will fill the wood equal to two coats of rough stuff, and saves a great amount of labour over the old process, when so much rubbing with lump pumice was done. Sand-paper when the filling is thoroughly hard, and apply another coat of paint of ordinary thickness, when, after another sand-papering, you have a good surface for your colour. Rough-coating on cars has gone almost out of use, and few shops are now using it to any extent. My experience is that paint has less tendency to crack where rough stuff is left off. I do not claim that the filling was the principal cause of the cracking, if it was properly mixed; but I believe the water used in rubbing down a car with the lump pumice injures the paint, as it will penetrate in some places, particularly around the moulding plugs. _Finishing Colour._--The car being ready for the finishing colour, this should be mixed with the same proportion of dryer as the previous coat, or just sufficient to have it dry in about the same time. A great error with many car painters is using a large portion of oil in the under coats, and then but little, if any, in the finishing coats; this has a decided tendency to crack, the under coats being more elastic. Always aim to have colour dry in about the same time, after you have done your priming; by this plan you secure what all painters should labour to accomplish--namely, little liability to crack. Work will of course crack sometimes after being out a few months, or when it has repeated coatings of varnish; and using a quick rubbing varnish on work will cause it to give way in fine checks quicker than anything else. Many of the varnishes used are the cause of the paint cracking, and no painter has been wholly exempt from this trouble.