It is assumed that the vehicle to be varnished is made of four differently coloured woods - ash, creamy white; mahogany, reddish brown; hickory, flesh-coloured drab; and lancewood, straw colour. The straw colour of lancewood contrasts best with mahogany, so the two other light-coloured woods have to be tinted to match straw colour. For this purpose coat with a solution of gamboge and turpentine, a few drops of linseed oil being added to every pint of the stain; test on any odd bits of ash and hickory to make sure the stain is of the right tint. Prepared yellow stains might be diluted to answer the purpose. The staining does away with the patchwork look of the several light-coloured woods. The next process is to fill the wood grain. The dense lancewood will not need so much filling as the other woods. The filling is a nearly colourless liquid made by mixing together 2parts of turpentine and 1 part of palest linseed oil; apply it with a stumpy-haired brush, and wipe off any superfluity with a cleau white rag, rubbing the latter well into the wood to smooth the grain which the liquid filling has raised. After a day or so, brush in another filling.

Make this with 2 parts of linseed oil and 1 part of turpentine, and add a tablespoonful of sugar of lead or of sulphate of copper driers to every pint of filling; the lead does not affect the colour of the filling so much as the sulphate of copper. Wipe with rag as before, and allow to stand for a day or two. If the weather makes the oil sweat out on the surface, wipe it thoroughly dry and then well brush on a light coat of pale copal varnish, following in a day or two with a finishing coat of hard-drying copal varnish. The surface of the first coat of varnish may be rubbed over with a bunch of clean horsehair to remove nibs and to grain it slightly; this dulness favours absorption of the next coat of varnish, which is a full (lowing coat lightly laid on. Among the points it is necessary to remember are these. Do not let the varnish flow into recesses; let there be at all parts only the amount of varnish laid on with the brush; and always hold a small dry tool in the left hand with which to wipe off superfluous varnish. The ironwork, if quite bright, may be varnished with carriage copal varnish in which a little white thinned with turpentine, has been mixed (a tablespoonful to lpt. of varnish). The ironwork must be free from grease or oil before it is varnished, or it will dry unevenly.

Black japan is used for common work such as Ralli cars, but it does not harmonise with other colours. Leather, if used for dash-iron or wings, should be red-tan enamelled, or japan surface leather should be used; either of the leathers mentioned is more suitable than black leather for the purpose.