In addition to the Milk Paint appendix in the “The Anarchist’s Design Book” there are a few more resources that the new milk painter might find useful:
Chapter 25 on Finishing in “Chairmaker’s Notebook” by Peter Galbert, available from Lost Art Press.
Peter’s blog Chair Notes has tons of information including this article on using milk paint, “Bullet Proof Finish.”
Chris recently completed a DVD for a bookcase where he covers the use of milk paint. The DVD (or dowload) is available from Popular Woodworking.
For the adventurous painter and finisher:
Brian Anderson, our compatriot in France, experimented with a milk paint recipe and reported his results in “The Mad Chef’s Milk Paint Gets A Shellacking” post here.
A big thank you to Richard Byrne and Ryan Mooney for providing a wealth of links to painting and finishing resources in yesterday’s post, “Milk Paint – A Short History.”
A journeyman joiner in Kelso, having procured some arsenic for poisoning rats, mixed it amongst oatmeal, and laid it in his tool chest. His wife accidentally finding it, and not knowing the meal contained poison put it into their porridge on Monday morning last. Her eldest child who was about three years of age, upon taking the porridge, said they were bad, and would take no more, but she and a child she was nursing took a few spoonfuls of them, which they had no sooner done, than they were seized with violent reaching [sic] and vomiting, attended with a heat and pricking pain in the stomach. The husband coming in soon after for his breakfast, she told him what she had done, when he exclaimed, “You are all poisoned!” He immediately run [sic] for a doctor, who made use of every proper means to expel the poison, which was happily effected, as they are now in a fair way of recovery.
— from The Pennsylvania Packet Friday, Nov. 18, 1785, courtesy of Jeff Burks
In “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” one appendix is devoted to milk paint. As Chris notes there are plenty of milk paint recipes from the 1800s and provides a reference from 1836, “The Painter’s, Guilder’s and Varnisher’s Manuel…” by Henry Carey Baird. I thought 1836 was rather a late date. And I wondered if there was a recipe that was accepted as a standard and when the recipe came into use in America.
In 1774, an updated edition of “L’Art du Peinture, Doreur, Vernisseur” by Watin was published. This book took an orderly approach to the painting arts compared to the many ragtag publications that covered trade secrets that ranged from royal cake recipes to how to do your laundry.
About 20 years later, Antoine-Alexis Cadet de Vaux, a French chemist (and friend to Ben Franklin), was experimenting with the distemper recipes in Watin’s book. He published his findings in “Feuille de Cultivateur” around 1793. This was followed by “Memoire sur la peinture au lait” published in 1800 or 1801 (depending on which month it was in the French Republic Calendar at the time of publication). Cadet de Vaux noted that his previous recipe was published at a time of public misfortune (the Revolution) and a time of shortages. Although distemper paint was inexpensive the cost and shortages of linseed oil led him to use milk instead.
In “Memoire,” Cadet de Vaux describes the advantages of milk paint compared to distemper: milk paint was cheaper, the recipe was not heated, it dried fast, did not smell of size or oil and when rubbed with a coarse cloth the paint did not come off. The recipe consisted of skimmed milk, fresh slaked lime, oil of caraway, linseed or nut oil and Spanish white. He explains that the “skimmed milk has lost its butyraceous part, but retains its cheesy part.” The cheesy part acts as a kind of glue and gives the mixture an elasticity.
Cadet de Vaux also provides a milk paint recipe for exterior work. In 1801, “Memoire” was translated and published in London in “The Repertory of Arts and Manufacters,” and you can read the recipe and the butyraceous remark here.
Cadet de Vaux’s recipe was repeated in “The Painter’s and Varnisher’s Guide…” by P. F. Tingry (a Swiss chemist) in 1804. Many more editions of painting and varnishing manuals with various titles and translations followed. Cadet de Vaux’s recipe appears to be the standard.
Somewhere around 1803-1808, milk paint recipes appeared in articles and almanacs in New York and New England and for the most part were from the English translation of Cadet de Vaux’s “Memoire.”
Now I get to write my favorite command in Franglish, “Fetchez la vache!”
Thursday in the Afternoon an Inquisition was taken before Thomas Beach, Esq; Coroner for the City of London, on the Body of William King, a Carpenter; it appeared by the Evidence, that some carpenters being at Work last Tuesday Afternoon, in repairing a House of Mr. Dalmaboy, on Ludgate-hill, Words arose between one John Garnett, a Carpenter, and the Deceased, in Relation to the Deceased’s spoiling some Tools of Garnett’s; that the Deceased pushed Garnett against some Sash Doors there, and that Garnett took up a Hammer, and threatened to knock the Deceased down if he pushed him any more; that King retired towards the door, but Words still continuing between them, he returned to Garnett, and lifted up his Hand, as intending to strike Garnett, that then Garnett immediately took up a plane and struck the Deceased on the right Temple, who fell down speechless, and, notwithstanding he was immediately blooded, was seized with a Stupor, and was sent to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he expired early the next morning. As there did not appear any previous Malice between the Parties, the Jury found Garnett Guilty of Manslaughter, and the Coroner committed him to Newgate, to take his Trial at the next Sessions, which begins at the Old Bailey on Wednesday next.
— from the The Public Advertiser of London (Sept. 12, 1761) courtesy of Jeff Burks
When my friend Dean and I added the 1,000-square-foot addition onto my existing house, I made all of the moulding myself from rough stock using a combination of electric routers and moulding planes.
Every baseboard, casing, shoe mould and backbend was cut and installed by me during a six-month period where I don’t recall sleeping.
Today I went to Hyde Park Lumber Co. and plunked down $800 for all the moulding at our Willard Street storefront. I’m not happy about it, from a maker’s point of view, but the numbers don’t lie. I needed more than 300 linear feet of moulding, plus specialized corner blocks to match the original Victorian interior.
By contrast, the cost of the rough stock and the tooling I needed to do it myself was more than $1,100.
The moulding I bought today is cut, sanded, primed and delivered on Thursday morning.