Document k9kgGGOqmrxz9m1jN2Lmoo9yb

A Taint Talk to Paint Dealers It ByC.rB. HECXU f' mm*"** 0007--SWP--041863 N23042 WHY PREPARED PAINT? A PAINT TALK TO PAINT DEALERS Third EdiUu. 1*11 G. B. HECICEL Aitkor of "A Point CntodxUm lor Point Mo b*** *Vhr Point "Point Cnorontooc.** otc. PuUhkd hr tb CdveatieMl Bwrtou* Point MonufoctoraiV AmooUtton of tho Uoiwd State* bmUiy'i Oflct: 436 The So u t h , Philo. 0007-SWP-041864 0007-SWP-000125252 Copyrighted (pop C. B. HECKEL 0007-SWP-041865 0007-SWP-000125253 A RESPONSIBLE NAME ON A SEALED CAN IS EVERYWHERE THE MODERN GUARANTEE OF QUALITY Why Prepared Paint? Folio 5 BY WAY OP EXPLANATION In the July, 1909, issue of its "Paint Modernism,'' the Bureau of Promotion and Development propounded to Paint Dealers certain pointed questions and offered a aeries of cash swards for the best answers received. The questions were: "If your customer should ask you, how would you answer these questions: "First. Would you paint your own house with Scientifically Machine-Made Paint (commonly called 'ready-mixed punt*)? "Second. What are your reasons?'' The writer has been permitted to look over the mass of responses called forth by this inquiry, and has thought that every dealer should know not only what these writers have to say, but also what others, who have from time to time expressed themselves on the same subject, have to say; the object being to assist the dealer in selling prepared paints. For. after all, paint is made to sell; No dealer wants to make a collection of beau tifully labeled cans, and, no matter bow valuable the contents, a can of paint is of no use to anybody until those contents have been spread where they belong. 0007-SWP-041866 0007 Folia i Why Prepared Paint? This "talk," then, is intended to help the paint dealer sell paint. To (ell paint one must know paint and ba able to talk paint--to tell the whys and wherefore*, 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 dose 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 host to take care of the fish'that insist on jumping aboard; his concern U to lure the fish that don't know they were horn 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 win pay him Why Prepared Paint? Falla 7 to paint, the local paint dealer is a poor missionary of the Gospel of Paint. Thus far, an interests can puU together, and there is no apparent reason why the dealers in any vicinity should not pool their resources in teaching their neighbors the value of paint as insurance against deterioration and as a financial asset, just as the evangelical churches often unite iin a non-sectarian religious revival After conviction of delinquency has come is time enough for individual efforts. This talk properly comes into play after the prospective consumer has been con vinced that he needs paint, and is intended to help the dealer to convince him that the kind of paint he should select is Scientifically Machine-Made Paint, in preference to paste paints, mixed for use by hand. There is no doubt that the advocate of such paint has the better argument all the way through, if he knows how to use it. WOULD YOU USE PREPARED PAINT ON YOUR OWN HOUSE? The writer once asked a white lead manufacturer: "Would you use straight lead or a combination on your own house?" 0007--SWP-041867 0007-SWP-000125255 folio I Why Prepared Paint? His answer was: "I would add a per centage oi zinc, but I'm not advertising that fact." This answer covers a part of the ques tion at the bead of this page. It means that this manufacturer's experience had taught him that two white pigments in combination arc better than one alone. It, however, leaves untouched the ques tion of mechanical efficiency and initial economy. As a matter of fact, it appears from abundant evidence that the paint dealers of the United States do, as a rule, use pre pared paints on their own property, and that they have good reasons, bached by experience, for so doing. WHAT IS PREPARED PAINT? Prepared paint is, first of all, paint in its most modem form. It is as up-to-date as wireless telegraphy, the telephone, the automobile, package biscuits or ready made shoes. The struggle against its advance is as futile as any other attempt to set back the bands on the dock of progress. . Paint is still obtainable in three forms: First, as dry pigments and thinner*. All paints used to be made by the painter from such materials, laboriously grinding the dry pigments in oil; then laboriously Why Prepared Paint? mixing the product with more oil, turpen tine, dryers, etc. Second, as paste colors, oil, turpentine, japan, etc. Painters of a later <iate found it more profitable and infinitely more sat isfactory to allow the manufacturer to do the grinding of the dry pigments in all 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 today are insisting as strongly upon the privilege of mixing as their predecessors insisted upon their prerogative of grinding paints. Third, s 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 the machine will do the work better than a man, we let the machine do it." Another writerbaa remarked, that "life is too short to spend in pushing a paint paddle." Tins is the kernel of the argument in favor of prepared point: A machine will 0007-SWP-Q4186B 0007-SWP Folio 10 Why Prepared PltT do mechanical work better than * man, will do more of it in a given time and at a lower coat. In competitionwithmachin 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 hick. 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 aeries of try-it-on, alittle-more-of-this-and-s-little- iess-of-that attempts, before the required result is obtained. Prepared paint is made by formula from materials that have passed chemical in spection and been calculated to stand ard. 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 print, produced. .Such assurance is impossible without the rid of chemical and physical experts, who are not available to the painter or contractor who buys and mixes Why Prepared Paint? FoUo II his own materials by the gallon or the barrel. When a formula has been proved by test or experience to be right, it is impor tant that it shall be duplicated, in order to duplicate results. Such duplication is impracticable in small quantities outside of the laboratory, hence every lot of paint prepared for use by hand in the paint shop varies from the accepted standard. In the paint factory duplication is, within narrow limits, absolute. Tina - is a labor-saving age. Modem workmen work six or eight hours a day, whereas their forerunners toiled "from sun to sun"--end longer liter the day was prolonged by the introduc tion of gas and electricity. Mechanical progress has effected the revolution. Machinery not only facilitated production and improved manufactured products, but by cheapening commodities, placed them within the reach of the common people, and thus vastly broadened consumption. An unpeinted building is to day a reproach, simply because mechan ical progress has made paint plentiful and cheap. Now a power-mixer will tint to a uniform gray, in right or ten minutes, one thousand gallons of white liquid paint, with lamp-black. To obtain a uniform tint in one gallon of these materials, 1 ; j ) j > [ j { 0007-SWP--041869 FriteU Why Prepared P>IIT by hand, would require hours o! constant stirring. The cost of the mechanical work on the thousand gallons would be very small per gallon. The cost of hand labor is from fifteen cents to forty cents per hour. Lamp-black is an extreme ex ample of difficult mixing, but the same relative ratio obtains throughout the en tire tilt of tints and shades. Moreover, the machine-mixed paint is told in packages of various convenient sixes, to that the buyer can have exactly as much as he needs and no more. If he runs short, another can will make up the shortage without waste. Hand-mixed paint, on the other hand, cannot be made to the exact tint required without either excess or shortage. Tinting colors vaty in strength. If too much U used, more white roust be added--and someone must y lor the excess of paint If not enough made, it is almost impossible to match exactly by mixing a small additional quantity--end here also is a kiss to be pud for by someone. Any painter will admit that be can make better paint by stirring his ingredi- ents together hall an hour than by stirring only fifteen minutes, or by stirring a full hour instead of only half an hour. But the mechanical efficiency of tile paint machine, working a few minutes, ia greater than that of a man working a * i| ' fl n W,ii h11 yf Prepared P,o_jLinn^.t! FU=t> whole day. Consequently, whatever vir tue there is in uniformity of composition and through 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 importance. Using exactly the same materials, good paint can be produced by one method; bad paint by another. In mixing together white lead, sine 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 odd 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 eaey. It matters seriously, too, what kind of a dryer is used in the differ ent kinds of paint and how much. The manufacturer 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 I j j t ] I J 0007-SWP-041870 0007-SWP fon,,u Why Prepared Paint? to the other material* in his paints. If be 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 sumof agood 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 tint*--are made chiefly of sine oxide and white lead (corroded or aublimed), 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 of the most econom ical 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 mere satisfactory ser vice in ordinary use than any one of them alone. Why Prepared Faint? r, Modem prepared paint, considering its cost, convenience and efficiency. Is the cheapest manufacured 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 coat. 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 sine 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 bint. 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 unpracviced hands. 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. J I | j j i i | j } j i | < 0007-SWP-041871 rn >6 Wly Prepared fatalT J SOME EXPERT OPINIONS The Pennsylvania Railroad consumes annually about 11,000,000 worth ol paints and painting; materials. Or. C. B. Dudley, late chemist of that road and head of its testing laboratories, has expressed in print. his idea of a properly devised paint formula--and be it remembered that his opinions controlled the formulas of the 81,000,000 worth of paints referred to. HU belief regarding lead and tine is that "the value of either is enhanced by the addition of the other* his preference being, perhaps, for equal weights of each" and that "if to this combination is added a proportion of an inert pigmentaboutequal in weight to that of the other two (that is about one-third of the total pigment) the white paint will he not only further im proved, but will be more economical in its consumption of solid color to produce a given tint." Paint manufacturers hold that the addi tion of zinc reduces the tendency of lead to chalk, while the addition at lead to zinc prevents excessive hardening. Dr. Dudley stated that he had no reason to question this conclusion; but that in ptactic* he and his associates always added to these a rather high percentage of inert pigment. Where lead or zinc alone were to be used, his practice was, "to grind i t | ) 1 > . * *, ; Why Prepared PaintT with them also a percentage of inert pig ment." Why? Because he believed it makes a more economical and more dur able coating. Dr. Robert Job, formerly chemist of the Philadelphia ft Reading Railroad, now a member of Milton Herahey Co., Ltd., technical and analytical chemist!;, has also written on this subject. He says: "Knowledge merely of the chemi cal composition of a given pigment may tell Utile or nothing regarding the ulti mate tervico which may be obtained from the paint ... A comparatively smalt proportion of tinting matter combined with a large proportion of inert matter in good physical condition, gave much better eerviee results than did other paints in which a larger proportion of coloring material was present ... A pigment composed' wholly of white lead is generally undesirable. . . . A mixture with zinc oxide or with some inert mate rial is more lasting, owing to slower chemical action between pigment and oil. and also the whiteness is retained much longer. Paints of this type have good coveting properties and give general good, service, . . . Our feeling is that it would be safer to buy a ready-mixed compound made by a reputable manufacturer, rather than purchase separately the constituents. 5 i i t < I .I 0007--SWP-041872 0007-SWP Why Prepared Faint T f Why Prepared Faint? wait I ready-mixed form is that the materials would be run through the mills together, and would undoubtedly be note 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 {Mints, whose opinions in similar vein might be quoted. But enough hi as good as a feast; tto competent au thority opposes these conclusions. PREPARED PAINT FOR THE > PAINTER That the property-owner profits by the use of prepared paint admits of no coun ter-argument. Some painters, however, stQl believe that whatevermaybe the ease with the consumer, they lose if they use such products. It is admitted by them that prepared paint is much 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 preparadon, leaving to them only the labor item of application--which also is endangered by paint in too convenient a form. Still 1 ? ; other painters, of the old and fast vanish ing class of skilled artisans, argue with some show of 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 coat of the paint in any Job of paint- ing is considerable--about 15 per cent, to 25 per cent, of the whole,--while the coat of labor makes up the bulk of the charges. Why, then, burden the cost of the material with additional charges for labor which can yield only an unsatis factory product? At the tame cost fair the job, will there not be more profit for the painter if the labor coat is reduced? To the second class, we may answer: "Skilled artisans of your type, however regrettable the fact, are scarcely available today, and tomorrow will be no more. Why, then, ding to customs which are henceforth impracticable? You know that by using and properly tempering tire 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 oi mod em mechanical progress and adapt your practice to twentieth century conditions? The dock of progress will not turn back for you and you can no more bring back the conditions of yesterday la your trade i j J 0007-SWP--041873 0007-SWP Folic 10 Why .Prepared Paint? than you can summon back to earth the mammoth and the mastodon. As progress has forced the majority of ns 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 eny more right to call the other an adulterant than Che linen collar has so to designate die starch which makes it a serviceable article of apparel THE TEACHINGS OF PRACTICAL FIELD TESTS The fact that paint is not a simple pro duct like apples, whicb 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? Folia II to specific service requirements, has been realized by technical consumers. We 1 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 J knowledge, except through the efforts of paint manufacturers to produce the best possible paint at the lowest possible | price; and not infrequently competition ! among dealer* has forced the selling price j of high-grade house paints verv close to ' the actual cost But the consumer buvs 1 green, black, or red paint, grumbles about ' the price, and then, moved by the reading of current advertising, expresses grave || doubts whether it it "pure lead." I 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 j protection and its comparative annual ! cost to him in dollars and cents. Some public tests on a large scale have been under way during many years past, which have been of great value in enlight ening the evezy-day consumer of paint. 0007-SWP-041874 0007-SWP-000125262 1 rii_____ Why Prepared Paint? Why Prepared fslsIT FaWars Large test fences were erected, at the sug gestion of the Paint Manufacturers' Asso ciation of the United States, at Fargo, North Dakota; Atlantic City, N. J-, and Pittsburgh, Pa. Each fence was placed under the supervision of a competent tech nical body. Forty or fifty paint formulas are under ten on each of these three fences, the formulas representing various types of prepared or ready-mixed paints. Report* were made on all of them, the conclusion being that "a mixture contain ing more than one prime white pigment (white lead, sine oxide, etc.)-- either with or without a small percentage of reinforc ing pigments--(barytes, silica, whiting, etc.) makes a paint far superior to a paint manufactured from one pigment alone, under the conditions of exposure prevail ing in these localities. . . . "The intelli gent nse of the inert pigments within cer tain limits is necessary for the production of a satisfactory mixed paint."* These results confirm the conclusions, of experts and prove that the manufac turers of prepared paint are correct in using two or more pigments in their formulas. The consumer who allows himself to be persuaded to use other materials when good modem prepared paint is obtainable, acts to bis own disadvantage. 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 band-mixed paints, are as much out of date as nose-rings and war-clubs. * "Th, PrWwcbon of Miami Paint," la 1*01, hj Enmt F. Burahard, Ualtad Staten Canonical Sorter Balboa. 0007--SWP-041875 0007-SWP-000125263