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Adhesives, Paints, and Varnishes: Strain

Or slake the best quality of stone lime with hot water, covering to keep in the steam. Strain through a fine sieve, let dry, and reduce the sediment to powder. Make this powder into a thick paste with a saturated solution of alum, and add, until the desired shade is produced, enough solution of bichromate of potash to produce a yellowish green, and solution of sulphate of copper to produce a bluish green.

Or mix thoroughly in powdered form 5 pounds of blue vitriol, 64 pounds of sugar of lead, 2½ pounds of arsenic, and 14 ounces of bichromate of potash. Add 3 pints of water, mix, and let stand 4 hours. Strain or filter, dry the sediment to powder, and grind or mix with boiled linseed oil.

To make cheap green paint, dissolve 4 pounds of Roman vitriol in hot water. Add 2 pounds of pearlash and stir until dissolved. Add pound of powdered yellow arsenic. Mix and apply with a paint brush. Two or three coats will be necessary. A darker or a lighter shade may be produced by adding more or less of the yellow arsenic. This paint contains no oil. Hence, while it looks well, it does not protect wood as does an oil paint, but is suitable for stone walls and similar places.

Or mix powdered charcoal with linseed oil, and add litharge as a dryer, using 1 gill to 1 gallon of oil. Add ocher to produce the required shade of green.

Brown Paint. - The browns are usually umber, bole, terra di Sienna, bistre, sepia, etc. To produce a brown pigment, make a solution of sulphate of copper in hot water, and separately a strong solution of prussiate of potash. Mix the two solutions to the desired shade.

Filter or strain through muslin. Dry the sediment to a powder. Grind or mix with boiled linseed oil.

Black Paint. - The blacks are usually lampblack, bone black, anthracite, graphite, powdered charcoal, etc.

Lampblack is very commonly used both for black paint and also to modify the brightness of tone in other colors in producing various tints and shades.

To make a cheap black paint, mix powdered charcoal with linseed oil, and add as a dryer 1 gill of litharge to 1 gallon of oil.

Or take ivory or lampblack, 10 pounds; sifted road dust, 20 pounds; lime water, 2 gallons. Grind in raw linseed oil. Mix with boiled linseed oil. - Tints and Shades. - The various combinations of colors to produce tints and shades are innumerable, and can only be determined by experiment; but the following are the principal effects commonly desired, and indicate the lines along which the experiment should proceed. Pigments should be thinned with boiled linseed oil before mixing, the most predominant color being taken as a base, the other colors being slowly added in a thin stream and stirre vigorously. The proportions must be determined by experiment and the taste of the painter. The predominant color stands first in the following list: Ash color or gray, white lead and lampblack. Vary the quantity of lampblack to give the shade desired.

Lead color, white lead and indigo.

Drab, white lead, raw and burnt umber.

White oak, white lead and umber.

Flesh color, white lead, lake, or yellow ocher, or vermilion. Pearl, white lead, black, and blue.

Buff, white lead and yellow ocher.

Straw color, white lead and a small amount of yellow ocher.

Fawn, white lead, yellow ocher, and red.