Water-Proof Paint.

Scientific American 50, 28.8.1852

(For the Scientific American.)

Cheap and useful paint for roofs, walls, fences, outside plastering, &c., may be made by using tar; common tar or coal tar, made thin with spirits of turpentine. Let this be used instead of linseed oil, and to form the body add fine earthy matter such as dried clay or soft burnt bricks ground fine in a plaster mills. The soft shaly slates of different colors, like the "Ohio Paint." also answer a good purpose when finely pulverized to form the body of paint. For the coarsest kind of work, dry fine sandy loam may be added as a body. Any of these earthy bodies when made sufficiently fine can be used to good purpose in painting either with the tar mixture or oil. Plastered walls on the outside of buildings may thus be rendered water-proof and lasting by using the above cheap paints, and after one or two coats, it will take but a small quantity of oil paint with lead, to make a fine finish with a single coat of any desired color. Whenever a surface thus rendered impervious by this cheap means, is painted over with oil and lead, a single coat upon the surface instead of being absorbed will dry in a thin tough film on the surface, and be more effective than three coats of the same paint put upon an unprepa-red surface, which, like that of common woodwork, absorbs the oil from the lead.

Lebanon, Pa.
- S. G.