PAINT SHOP HINTS Fire Risks. Carelessness is no doubt the primary cause of most paint shop fires, and to this may be attributed the high rates asked for insurance. On looking over the reports of fires in such shops, it will often be found that some one was drawing benzine or gasoline or a benzine varnish from a barrel with a candle or open lamp standing near. All this work should be done by daylight, or else an electric incandescent light should be used. On no account should an open lamp, candle, or gas flame be allowed in the room in which oil, varnish, or benzine is kept.
Matches lighted and carelessly thrown down before they have been extinguished and falling into a pile of oil rags or wall paper trimmings, or into a lot of paint drippings, often cause un explained fires in paint shops. Matches care lessly dropped upon the floor and stepped upon afterward, may cause fire. It is better to allow only safety matches that strike on the box to be used. A sheet iron barrel or receptacle, with an iron lid, should be provided for all oily rags, waste, and the like; and this should be emptied every day, and the contents burned. Rags dampened with linseed oil and driers, or with boiled linseed oil, and thrown ip=7o a heap, will very frequently ignite by spontaneous combus tion clue to oxidation of the oil.
Metal troughs or pans should be kept under each barrel or tank where oil, gasoline, benzine, turpentine, or varnish is kept. These should be large enough to stand a paint pot or can in, so that any drippings may be caught in the can and not spilled on the floor. An excellent plan is also to cover the floor under such tanks or barrels with sheet zinc.
The following articles are exceedingly inflam mable if brought in contact with or near a flame, and should always be handled with caution: Asphaltum and other benzine varnishes, benzine, gasoline, naphtha, cheap rosin varnishes which are almost always thinned with benzine, and practically all the paint and varnish removers now on the market. While the above are safe enough when properly handled by daylight, they should never be used in a room with an open light or fire, since the vapor arising from them is inflammable, and the flames will often be car ried several feet back to the original container, causing an explosion and often a disastrous fire.
As a precautionary measure, every paint shop should be provided with a double set of fire buckets, one containing a strong salt water solu tion, and the other containing sand. The salt water may be thrown upon a fire starting in paper or rubbish or in a heap of oily rags or overalls, but the sand should be used upon burn ing oils or paints. Sand will smother the flame in the latter case, whereas water might spread it. it should be a fixed rule in the shop, that every Saturday evening or Monday morning it should be seen that the water pails are filled. The pails should be painted red, with the word "FIRE" upon them in white letters, and no one permitted to use the pails for any purpose except in case of fire.
Too great care cannot be exercised in the use of the gasoline torch for removing old paint, and all valves and tubes in these lamps must be kept scrupulously clean, otherwise there is always the danger of explosion. In burning off old paint from the side of a house, there is danger of the flame finding its way through some crevice be tween the clapboards into the open space be tween the studding, and causing a fire that will spread with great rapidity. A pail of water ready to dash upon an incipient fire should always be kept on the scaffold when burning off is being done.
Waste. There is a great deal of unnecessary waste in the average paint shop. Much of this is due to the lack of system in using up the re turned paints from the jobs. Paint pots that are allowed to remain open to the air soon skin over, and their contents become useless. An ex cellent plan is to have two covered metal paint kegs into which the returned paint can be emp tied—the lighter colors into one keg and the darker colors into the other. While this paint cannot well be used as a priming for new work, there is a great deal of rough work on which paint of this character can be used to advantage, such as fences and the like.
Paint pots and brushes should be cleaned at once, and the latter should not be allowed to stand around and harden and get unfit for use. Brushes are an expensive item. They will aver age not less than ten cents a day for every man employed on the work, provided reasonable care is taken of the brushes; but if they are neglected and allowed to dry hard, they will cost far more than this. A brush can be washed out with ben zine or naphtha after using, or a little varnish remover can be used to clean it.
Small portions of putty should not be allowed to stand around and harden. If an accumulation of this kind occurs, the lumps of putty may be cut into small chunks and placed in a pail of water a day or two. The water will soften up the putty and will gradually boil out, while the oil will become incorporated with the putty; and by working it a little, it can be rendered fit for use.
Sponges also are a pretty expensive item, not only because of their first cost, but because they wear out very soon. They are used chiefly in washing off old calcimine or water color paints. A novel plan for utilizing pieces of old sponge that would otherwise be wasted, and also for using small sponges that can be bought for a much lower price than large sponges, is to take Turkish toweling and sew it into bags about six inches square, filling these, not too tightly, with pieces of sponge. These sponge bags are just as effective as large sponges. When a bag becomes badly worn, it may be covered up with another bag, thus prolonging the life of the sponge in definitely. Burlap or bagging will answer quite as well as the Turkish toweling, and is not so expensive.