Bathtub Paint

Take white keg lead, tint to any desired color and then add, say, 1/8 boiled oil (pure linseed) to 7/8 hard drying durable body varnish. Clean the surface of the tub thoroughly before applying the paint. Benzine or lime wash are good cleaning agents. Coat up until a satisfactorily strong, pure color is reached. This will give good gloss and will also wear durably.

Coating for Name Plates

A durable coating for name plates in nurseries is produced as follows: Take a woolen rag, saturate it with joiners' polish, lay it into a linen one, and rub the wooden surface with this for some time. Rub down with sandpaper and it can be written on almost like paper. When all is dry, coat with dammar lacquer for better protection. If the wood is to receive a color it is placed in the woolen rag before rubbing down, in this case chrome yellow.

To Keep Flies from Fresh Paint

For the purpose of keeping flies and other insects away from freshly painted surfaces mix a little bay oil (laurel oil) with the oil paint, or place a receptacle containing same in the vicinity of the painted objects. The pungent odor keeps off the flies.

Heat-Indicating Paint

A heat-indicating paint composed of a double iodide of copper and mercury was first discovered years ago by a German physicist. At ordinary temperatures the paint is red, but when heated to 206° F. it turns black. Paper painted with this composition and warmed at a stove exhibits the change in a few seconds. A yellow double iodide of silver and mercury is even more sensitive to heat, changing from yellow to dark red.

To Keep Liquid Paint in Workable Condition

To prevent liquid paint which, for convenience sake, is kept in small quantities and flat receptacles, from evaporating and drying, give the vessels such a shape that they can be placed one on top of the other without danger of falling over, and provide the under side with a porous mass—felt or very porous clay, etc.—which, if mois-

tened, will retain the water for a long time. Thus, in placing the dishes one on top of the other, a moist atmosphere is created around them, which will inhibit evaporation and drying of the paint. A similar idea consists in producing covers with a tight outside and porous inside, for the purpose of covering up, during intermission in the work, clay models and like objects which it is desired to keep soft. In order to avoid the formation of fungous growth on the constantly wet bottom, it may be saturated with non-volatile disinfectants, or with volatile ones if their vapors are calculated to act upon the objects kept underneath the cover. If the cover is used to cover up oil paints, it is moistened on the inside with volatile oil, such as oil of turpentine, oil of lavender, or with alcohol.

Peeling of Paints

For the prevention of peeling of new coatings on old oil paintings or lakes, the latter should be rubbed with roughly ground pumice stone, wet by means of felt rags, and to the first new coat there should be added fine spirit in the proportion of about 1/10 of the thinning necessary for stirring (turpentine, oil, etc.). This paint dries well and has given good results, even in the most difficult cases. The subsequent coatings are put on with the customary paint. Fat oil glazes for graining are likewise mixed with spirit, whereby the cracking of the varnish coating is usually entirely obviated.

Polychroming of Figures

This paint consists of white wax, 1 part, and powdered mastic, 1 part, melted together upon the water bath and mixed with rectified turpentine. The colors to be used are first ground stiffly in turpentine on the grinding slab, and worked into consistency with the above solution.

Priming Coat for Water Spots

A very simple way to remove rain spots, or such caused by water soaking through ceilings, has been employed with good results. Take unslaked white lime, dilute with alcohol, and paint the spots with it. When the spots are dry—which ensues quickly, as the alcohol evaporates and the lime forms a sort of insulating layer—one can proceed painting with size color, and the spots will not show through again.