Preparing for Painters Work

Proper Way to Hold Brushes. The

proper way to hold a paint brush is between the first and middle fingers, the first joints of these two fingers acting as a sort of brace against the top of the brush. The thumb folds over the handle to meet the forefinger, giving a firmer grip. A house painter will almost invariably have a cal loused place on the inside of his middle finger.

In

using the round brush, it must be kept in one position in the hands and not turned around. The object of this is that it may wear down to a flat, chisel edge, and not to a point, as would happen if the brush were turned frequently.

Sash tools are generally made with a chisel edge, but not always. They are intended for painting the muntins of the sash, for cutting in chamfers and the edges of the trim, and other places where a small brush is needed.

The "man-help" is a convenient little tool used for fastening a brush to the end of a broom stick or long pole, for reaching peaks of gables, flagstaffs, and other inaccessible places. It is made of malleable iron and is adjustable to any angle.

Care

of Brushes. After the day's work is done, the brushes must first be drained of color, as much as possible, by wiping them out against the sides of the pot. Sometimes they are drawn back and forth against a board to bring them to the proper chisel edge. They should then be either laid flat upon a board, or should be hung up by passing a small piece of wire, bent to form a hook, through the hole that is usually found drilled in the handle, and suspending them either in a pot of color or in water. The brush must not be allowed to stand in the pot resting on the bottom, or it will bend the bristles and destroy the shape of the brush; nor must it be suspended in water so as to cover the twine bridle, as this would shrink the cord and twist the bristles out of shape. A good idea is to stretch a wire across the pot. This will serve to hang the brushes on, and it may also be used to drain the brush against in taking it from the pot, instead of against the edge of the pot. This will prevent the paint from running over the outside of the pot.

When the job is finished, the brushes should be thoroughly washed out with benzine or naph tha. If the brushes are to be laid away and not

used at once, a strong soap suds or lather made with some of the soap powders should be well worked into the brush, which should then be carefully pressed into proper shape, taking care not to squeeze out this lather, and laid away flat on a shelf. When the brush is to be used again, it should first be washed out to get rid of all the soap.

Helpful Hints. When working on a ladder, the pot is generally suspended from the rung of the ladder just below the workman's hands by means of a pot hook. The object, of course, is to leave the hands free and not to require them to travel far in going from the pot to the work.

If the body of the building is a light color, the trim being much darker, it is well to carry the body color over trim and all on the second coat, using the trim color on the last coat only. As the painter comes down the house, the cor nice will be painted with the trim color, cutting in panels with the body color if this is required. On the next shift down, the body color is first painted, and then the trims, as corners and round windows; and this process is repeated at each downward shift, whether working on a swing staging, or from extension ladders, or from a plank carried by scaffold brackets on two ladders.

If the trim is lighter in color than the body, the trim must be carried through the second coat in its proper color as well as through the third coat.

One special word of caution: Be very care ful not to drop paint from your brush down the sides of the building. The best way to avoid this is to drain the brush of superfluous color before you take it from the pot, and for this the wire stretched across the middle of the pot will be useful. Drops of paint, of a different color, splashed against the side of a house, cannot be perfectly removed in any way. If you attempt to rub them out, they will always show.

Outside blinds should be taken off and laid upon trestles to paint. This should never be done in a cellar or in any other damp place. Better results will be obtained if this work is done on the second floor than in a room without a cellar underneath.