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Why Prepared P
A PAINT TA
TO PAINT DEA
By G. B. HECK
Author ot "A P*iat CateeMam l "Why Palm P#U," *' Paint Qua
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PutJIahad by the Educational Bu ticn, Film Manulacturer*' AasecU Starca, 622*625 The Bourae, Philad
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BY WAY OF EXPLANATION
In the July, tgog, issue of its "Pa Modernism," ^he Bureau of Promo and Development propounded to P Dealers certain pointed questions offered a series of cash awards for best answers received.
The questions were:
"If your customer should ask you, h would you answer these questions:
"First. Would you paint your o house with Scientifically Machine-M Paint (commonly called 'ready-mi paint') ?
"Second. What are your reasons?"
The writer has been permitted to l over the mass of responses called fo by this inquiry, and has thought every dealer should know not only w these writers have to say, but also w others, who have from time to t expressed themselves on the same sub have to say; the object being to assist dealer in selling prepared paints.
For, after all, paint is made to sell: dealer wants to make a collection of be tifully labeled cans, and, no matter valuable the contents, a can of paint i no use to anybody until those cont have been spread where they belong
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This "talk," then, is intended to help the paint dealer sell paint. To sell paint one must know paint and be able to talk paint--to tell the whys and wherefores, and to convince the owner of the nimble dollar that the paint on his property will do him more good than the dollar in his pocket.
A well-known paint manufacturer used to advertise that "good paint costs nothing, because it saves more than it costs/' Here is a clearly demonstrable
fact that ought to be hammered hard into the head of every possible paint purchaser, and the dealer is the only man in close
enough touch with the consumer to get in
the necessary "knocks." For the first
essential to increasing the paint business
is to increase the demand for paint, and
until the possibilities in this line are
exhausted, squabbling over the business that comes begging to the store is foolish
and expensive. The good fisherman allows
the boat to take care of the fish that insist
on jumping aboard; his concern is to lure
the fish that don't know they were born
to be caught,
An unpainted or an ill-painted building in any community is a standing rebuke
to the enterprise of the paint dealers of that vicinity. If the owner can afford to paint and don't know that it will pay him
Why Prepared Paint?
the dry pigments in oil; then laboriouslymixing the product with more oil, turpen tine, dryers, etc.
Second, as paste colors, oil, turpentine, Japan, etc. Painters of a later date found it more profitable and infinitely more satis factory to allow the manufacturer to do the grinding of the dry pigments in oil by machinery. Some of the "moss-backs" fought hard against his new-fangled idea, but it long since prevailed, as commonsense improvements have the habit of doing. The custom is still common and many painters of to-day are insisting as strongly upon the privilege of mixing as their predecessors insisted upon their prerogative of grinding paints.
Third, as paints in sealed packages, practically ready for use. Many painters who, for ordinary purposes, advocate and prefer paints hand-mixed in their shops, when ordering paint in quantity for use on large operations, have the entire work of preparation done in the paint factory, thus testifying to the superiority of paints so made.
Elbert Hubbard has said, "When a machine will do the work better than a man, we let the machine do it." Another writer has remarked, that "life is too short to spend in pushing a paint paddle."
This is the kernel of the argument in favor of prepared paint: A machine will
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Fta io W H y Prepared Paint?
do mechanical work better than a man, will do more of it in a given time and at a lower cost. In competition with machin ery at mechanical labor, the machine always wins, and this victory inevitably means the employment of more workmen at higher wages. Prepared paint is mechanical efficiency plus concerted intel ligence ; hand-mixed paint is human brawn plus individual luck.
Moreover, prepared paint is the product of exceptional facilities and complete organization. Accuracy and duplication of results are assured at every stage of its production; while hand-mixed paint always involves a series of try-it-on, alittle-more-of-this-and-a-Uttle-less-of-that attempts, before the required result is
obtained. Prepared paint is made by formula from
materials that have passed chemical inves tigation and been calculated to standard. The paint manufacturer knows at every moment to the fraction of a per cent, exactly what is in his product and why. Assurance as to the character and quality of raw materials is of the utmost importance in the character of the paint produced. Such assurance is impossible without the aid of chemical and physical experts, who are not available to the painter or contractor who buys and mixes
Why Prepared Paint?
his own materials by the gallon or barrel.
When a formula has been prove test or experience to be right, it is im tant that it shall be duplicated, in o to duplicate results. Such duplicati impracticable in small quantities ou of the laboratory, hence every lot of prepared for use by hand in the shop varies from the accepted stan In the paint factory duplication is, w narrow limits, absolute.
Thisi is a labor-saving age. Mo workmen work eight or nine hou day, whereas their forerunners t "from sun to sun"--and longer the day was prolonged by the intro tion of gas and electricity. Mecha progress has effected the revolu Machinery not only facilitated produ 3nd improved manufactured prod but by cheapening commodities, p them within the reach of the com people, and thus vastly broadened sumption. An unpainted building is to a reproach, simply because mecha progress has made paint plentiful cheap.
Now a power-mixer will tint uniform gray, in eight or ten min one thousand gallons of white liquid p with lamp-black. To obtain a un tint in one gallon of these material
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Why Prepared Paint? Falw 1?
whole day. Consequently, whatever vir tue there is in uniformity of composition and thorough incorporation of materials is always present in prepared paints and ' never in hand-mixed paints.
Prepared paints have all the advantages of uniformity, economy and convenience.
SOMETHING ABOUT FORMULAS
The composition of a paint is important within certain limits, but the method of manufacture is at least of equal import ance. Using exactly the same materials, good paint can be produced by one method; bad paint by another.
In mixing together white lead, zinc oxide and barytes, for example, it makes a great deal of difference in the quality of the paint which is put in first. If we add the zinc to the lead and the barytes it will be almost impossible to get a uniform mixture, while if the lead and barytes are added to the zinc, the work is compara tively easy. It matters seriously, too, what kind of dryer is used in the different kinds of paint and how much. The manu facturer knows the nature of the dryers he uses and how much to use in any case. The hand-mixer seldom knows anything about the composition of the dryers he uses, nor why their composition and quantity should be varied according to the
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other materials in his paints. If he did
know the latter facts, the knowledge
would not help him. because he could not
learn the composition of the dryers.
Good paint is the sum of a good formula
plus proper procedure. Bad paint may
be either the result of a bad formula or
the sum of a good formula plus bad
procedure.
.
Each paint manufacturer has evolved
through experimentation, factory experi
ence and service results, the formula or
formulas he uses. Each contends that his
own are the best, and each has abundant
testimony to support his claims. The
accredited brands of paint--that is, the
whites and tints--are made chiefly of
zinc oxide and white lead (corroded or
sublimed), usually with a proper per
centage of the reinforcing pigments
(barium sulphate, calcium carbonate,
asbestine, silica and the silicates, etc.).
Some contain only two of these pigments,
others three or more, and at the
present day no one is competent to
say which is the best or the most economi-.
cal combination. It may be affirmed,
however, without fear of successful
contradiction, that a combination of two
or more of these pigments, properly
balanced, yields far more satisfactory ser
vice in ordinary use than any one of them
alone.
Why Prepared Paint? Fli. IS
Modem prepared paint, considering its cost, convenience and efficiency, is the cheapest manufactured commodity offered to consumers, while modem paste paints are among the dearest--for the two can be produced, gallon for gallon, at nearly the same manufacturing cost.
The general public, through the recent clamor over the purity of products, has generally lost sight of the fact that in something like half the paints consumed, neither lead nor zinc has any place. Yet we occasionally hear of intelligent people gravely proposing the use of a blow-pipe to determine the purity of paint Let it be understood that the blow-pipe will serve only to determine the purity of untinted white lead. If color or if any other white pigment has been added to the lead, it is useless even for this. Fur thermore, pure white leads differ widely in quality, and of these differences the blow-pipe will give no hint. Finally its use is limited to one kind of white lead only, as sublimed white lead--the most stable of its class--will not yield a lead bead to the blow-pipe in unpracticed bands. No colored paint is susceptible to the blow-pipe test and for other determi nations it should be limited to the chemi cal laboratory, where it has an important place, in the hands of those capable of interpreting its results.
ready-mixed form is that the materials would be run through the mills together, and would undoubtedly be more uniform than if the small consumer prepared his own mixture, while also in the latter case there would be greater liability to poor results, due to excess of Japan."
These are but two of a number of authorities responsible for a vast con sumption of paints, whose opinions in similar vein might be quoted. But enough is as good as a feast; no competent author ity opposes these conclusions.
PREPARED PAINT FOR THE
PAINTER
That the property-owner profits by the use of prepared paint admits of no counter argument. Some painters, however, still believe that whatever may be the case with the consumer, they lose if they use such products. It is admitted by them that prepared paint is mucb; more economical than shop-mixed paint , and many of them will allow all the other contentions of the manufacturers^--beauty, convenience, service, etc. They'maintain, however, that paint in this-form takes from them all the profit 'of- preparation, leaving to them only the labor item of application--which also is endangered by paint in too convenient a form. .'Still other
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painters, of the old and fast vanishing class of skilled artisans, argue with some reason that as paint should be modified for various purposes and for the several coats,, prepared paint is not technically practical.
To the first class we may answer that the cost of the paint in any job of paint ing is inconsiderable--about 10 per cent, to 26 per cent, of the .whole,--while the cost of labor makes up the bulk of the charges. Why, then, burden the cott of the material with additional charg'd for labor which can yield only an unsatis factory product? At the same cost for the job, will there not be more profit for the painter if the labor cost is reduced?
To the second class, we may answer: Skilled artisans of your type, however regrettable the fact, are scarcely available to-day, and to-morrow will be no more. Why, then, cling to customs which are henceforth impracticable? You know thst by using and properly tempering tfcs . more and the less liquid portions of the paint in the can, you can temper and vary its characteristics within very wide limits;
why not, then, accept the results of mod em mechanical progress and adapt your practice to twentieth century conditions?
The clock of progress will not turn back for yoii and you can no more bring back the conditions of yesterday in your trade
than you can summon back to earth the mammoth and the mastodon. As progress has forced the majority of us to adopt ready-made shoes, collars and stockings, so it will eventually compel all of us to use prepared paints or go paintless.
POT AND KETTLE
The pot gains no repute by calling the kettle black. The manufacturer of- one kind of paint material gains nothing by condemning the formulas of the rest. "Pure paint," so called, may be very poor paint, and, as Drs. Dudley and Job have shown, highly reinforced' paint may be and often is most excellent paint. White lead, zinc oxide and the rest, properly used, are all excellent paint materials, each within its own proper limits; but none has any more right to call the other an adulterant than the linen collar has so to designate the starch which makes it a serviceable article of apparel.
THE TEACHINGS OP PRACTICAL
FIELD TESTS,
The fact that paint is not a simple pro duct like apples, which grow on trees ready to be eaten, but is a complex material which must be manufactured with a full knowledge of the properties of its constituents and with due regard
Why Prepared Paint? FtJia 21
to specific service requirements, has been realized by technical consumers. We have seen that the railroad experts know what to require in paints and the reasons for these requirements. The general paint-consuming public, however, have naturally been the last to profit by this knowledge, except through the efforts . of paint manufacturers to produce the best possible paint at the lowest possible price; and not infrequently competition among dealers has forced the selling price of high-grade house paints very close to the actual cost. But the consumer buys green, black, or red paint, grumbles about the price, and then, moved by the reading of current advertising, expresses grave doubts whether it is "pure lead."
It is the paint dealer's privilege and opportunity to demonstrate to the con sumer, first, that most paints could not' be "pure white lead" or pure anything else, that "pure paint" and "good paint" are usually irreconcilable terms, and that what concerns him is not the composition of the paint, but its value in beauty and protection and its comparative annual cost to him in dollars and cents.
Some public tests on a large scale have been under way during the past few years, which are likely to be of assistance in enlightening the every-day consumer of
The consumer who allows himself to be persuaded to use other materials when good modem prepared paint is obtainable, acts to his own detriment. He has, of course, a personal right to use tallow candles for light, a crooked stick for plow ing, a sickle for reaping, if he so chooses, since only he pays the cost and suffers the inconvenience, but he ought at least to have the opportunity to know that all these practices, including the practice of using hand-mixed paints, are as much out of date as nose-rings and war-clubs.
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