Popular Technology; or, Professions and Trades. Vol. 2 (of 2)Hazen, Edward
History
Popular Technology; or, Professions and Trades. Vol. 2 (of 2)
Hazen, Edward
Industrial arts; Occupations
9. Spirits of turpentine is produced by distilling with water the
resinous juice or sap of several species of the pine. The residuum,
after distillation, is the turpentine of commerce. Spirits of
turpentine is mixed with paints, to cause them to dry with rapidity.
Like oil, it improves with age, and it is sold in the same manner by
the common wine measure.
10. White lead, and several other principal paints, are purchased in
their crude condition, and reduced to a state of minute division in
paint-mills. They are afterwards mixed with boiled oil, and put up in
kegs of different sizes for sale. Many articles, however, are
pulverized, and sold in a dry state. The preparation of paints is
commonly a distinct business, and very few painters seem to be
acquainted with the mode in which it is performed.
11. In mixing colors for house and sign painting, white lead forms the
basis of all the ingredients. This the color preparer, or the painter
himself, modifies and changes by the addition of coloring materials,
until it is tinged with the proposed hue. The pigments derived from
vegetable bodies, produce, when first applied to surfaces, a
brilliant effect; but they cannot long resist the combined influence
of air and light, while the mineral colors, in the same exposure,
remain unchanged.
12. Painters, in the execution of their work, commonly lay on three
coats of paint. In communicating a white, the two first coats are
composed of white lead and oil; and in the last, spirits of turpentine
is substituted for the oil, for the inside work. For the outside of
buildings, especially in warm and dry climates, this liquid is
inapplicable, since it causes the paint to crack and flake off. It is,
however, frequently used, when the painter is compelled to do his work
at too low a rate, or when he is regardless of his reputation.
13. For other colors, the composition for the different coats is the
same, except for the two last, in which other coloring substances are
added to the materials just mentioned, to give the proposed hue. The
tools for painting houses are few in number, and consist chiefly of
brushes of different sizes, made of hog's bristles.
14. _Graining_ is understood, among painters, to be the imitation of
the different species of scarce woods used for the best articles of
furniture. But the manner in which this kind of work is executed can
be hardly gathered from a concise description, although it may be
easily learned from a practical exhibition of the process by a
painter.
15. _Ornamental painting_ embraces the execution of friezes and other
decorative parts of architecture on walls and ceilings. The ornaments
are drawn in outline with a black-lead pencil, and then painted and
shaded, to give the proper effect. Some embellishments of this kind
are executed in gold-leaf, in the same manner with gold letters on
signs. This kind of work is called _gilding in oil_.
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