A Cheap Paint. ONE THAT WILL NOT COME OFF.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 6, 2 April 1906, Page 140

A Cheap Paint. ONE THAT WILL NOT COME OFF.

A recent issue of the Dufferin Leader contains a recipe for a cheap, durable outside paint for painting outbuildings, fences and old weather-beaten buildings. The rougher the lumber it is used on the better will be the results obtained. Many a farmer will find it a cheap and useful paint on farm buildings, and that it will add to their beauty and preservation at a trifling cost. Take two bushels of fresh stone lime, or good fresh slacked lime will do, but the first is preferable. Put the lime in a water-tight barrel and put in enough water to thoroughly slacken it. Add twenty-five pounds of beef tallow, and stir occasionally until the tallow is thoroughly incorporated with the lime. Less than this quantity can be mixed by observing the proper proportions of lime and tallow. For colouring matter earth colours must be used, such as yellow ochre, Venetian red or burnt umber. With either spruce or golden ochre you can get a beautiful soft cream tint, and by using more ochre a buff tint. Venetian red will give a creamy pink, and more red will give a dull pink, which in some cases will look well. Burnt umber will give all the shades of drab you want by adding more or less as you want it light or dark. Mix the colouring matter with water in a separate vessel, taking care it does not go lumpy. This can be prevented by adding a little water at a time and stir thoroughly until you get it about the consistency of cream. From fifty to seventy-five cents, worth of ochre will be sufficient to make the mass a nice light buff, but as ochre varies in strength, the tint can be secured only by testing as you mix. As the colour will always be darker in its mixed state than after it is applied and dries out, test a little on a piece of board until you get the depth of tint wanted. A pretty combination on a building is a buff body, and for trimming add umber to the buff until you get a contrasting shade of creamy drab. The mixture will need thinning with soft water until it works freely under the brush. Be careful not to thm too much. Apply with a whitewash brush or fiat paint brush. This is a cheap and durable paint, and is valuable for outbuildings where a rough grade of lumber is generally used, which would require a lot of oil paint. More especially is it valuable in painting old and weather-beaten buildings. The combination of lime and tallow forms a waterproof and weatherproof coating which fills the pores of the wood and arrests the action of the weather upon the wood. To make a good job, cracks and holes in the siding of buildings should be filled with the paint in its paste form, and if filled as they are come to and immediately painted over before getting dry, will not show spots or streaks. The writer, being a painter of many years' experience, can confidently recommend it to those who wish to try it.