Valuable Receipts. Painting the Floors of Piazzas.

Scientific American, 6.6.1863

The floors of piazzas fronting the South and East are liable to leak during severe rain storms. A good cement for the seams of such floors has been a desideratum. An acquaintance of ours who had been much annoyed with the floor of his piazza leaking, was advised to try a cement composed of dissolved indiarubber and asphalt, and he did so, stopping the leakage perfectly. When the cement was sufficiently dry he painted the floor with drab colored oil paint, as a finish to the whole, and completed the operation one evening about sundown. Next morning he went out to examine his piazza, expecting to find the paint partly dry, and the floor improved in appearance. Judge of his surprise when he beheld the black Indiarubber cement which he had used floating like bubbles upon his drab paint, and the whole coating of the floor in an undelightful state of spissitude. The oil of the paint had acted upon the cement as a solvent; and the thought which first suggested itself to him was, that although the cement could stop leaks, it was impossible to paint over it. Thinking upon the subject during the day, the idea was presented to his mind that, if he covered the cement with a coat of varnish, he could paint over this when it became dry, and the oil of the paint would not penetrate under it. He acted upon this idea, and has now a most perfect and beautiful raintight piazza floor. Others may profit by such experience. Hot pitch is a good watertight cement for the seams of floors, &c., but it is liable to become soft in hot weather. Linseed oil, boiled with the flowers of sulphur, makes a cement resembling dissolved pitch, and is second to none for stopping leaks in such floors; it is also a great preservative of wood. It is employed for coating the knees of warships in the French navy, to prevent dry rot. A cement composed of white lead, oil, and pulverized white sand or glass, is about the best that can be used for such purposes.