The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

House Painting

When through with a job the brushes should be well washed out; this may be with turpentine, but a cheaper material is kerosene, which answers very well; if they can be rinsed out with benzine finally it is a good way.

It is also a good plan to wash out the paint with kerosene (or turpentine) and then wash the brush thoroughly with soap and warm water, finally rinsing out very thoroughly; then by jerking the brush rapidly through the air most of the water may be thrown out; then hang it up to dry where it will be safe from dust. Dust is the great enemy of varnish.

Old brushes which have been allowed to dry with the paint in them are usually thrown away or sold for a trifle to the junkman; in which latter case they come into the hands of a renovator, who softens them by soaking in hot kerosene, usually in a hot-water bath, the kerosene being in the interior vessel and boiling water outside; after which they are cleaned by the use of a mixture of one part acetone and two parts benzole, or coal-tar naphtha. This mixture is a powerful solvent, and will dissolve the old dried paint out of almost any brush. Any of the modern varnish-removers, which contain these liquids, will do the same; and it is not necessary to throw away a costly brush because it has been neglected. But the best way is not to neglect it. The best brushes are the cheapest in the end, and a valuable brush deserves good care.

Mixing Paints

Paints are sold as dry colors, colors in oil, or ready-mixed paints. Only the professional painter, who has been trained in using them, should use dry colors, and he should avoid them as a rule; dry colors should be mixed with a little oil to the consistency of thick molasses, by rub bing the dry powder and the oil together with a spatula or large palette-knife; and if this color is to be mixed with another, or with white, the mixture should be made while each is a thin paste, if possible; then oil or turpentine is added to get the required consistency. Remember that a pint of turpentinethins a batch of paint as much as a quart of oil; the oil is not a great deal more fluid than the finished paint, and the turpentine is; turpentine or benzine is a more mobile liquid than even water, and oil is much thicker. So we always reckon these liquids to have double the thinning power of oil. They also penetrate wood more readily, and deeper. Colors in oil are dry colors ground through a mill with enough oil to make a paste, and are also called paste colors; they are thus intimately mixed with oil, and can easily be added to other paint mixtures, or thinned for use by themselves.