What the People Want to Know about Varnish and Varnishing % s THIRD EDITION REWRITTEN PEOPLE'S TEXT-BOOK ON VARNISH NEWARK MURPHY VARNISH COMPANY Franklin Murphy President MURPHY VARNISH COMPANY HEAD OFFICE NEWARK N J Other Offices BOSTON 140 Pearl Street CLEVELAND Water and Frankfort Streets ST LOUIS 300 South Fourth Street CHICAGO Twenty-Second and Dearborn Streets Factories Newark and Chicago. Copyright 1892 by Murphy Varnish Company TO THE PEOPLE Not this; Compre- We set down with great care in this short book all tensive, we know about varnish that people, who never expect to do any varnishing, will read, remember, and use. There is (i) a great deal of knowledge that nobody- wants but a maker — this exists in first-rate varnish factories, nowhere else ; there is (2) another great deal of knowledge that nobody wants but the work- northis; man, the man with the brush in his hand — this belongs to good workmen and men who have learned from them ; there is (3) still another great deal that employers of varnishers want — this is business sense northis * that comes, sometimes of instruction, sometimes of experience — another name for it is judgment ; another, intelligence ; another, self-distrust and trust in trust- worthy men. No This book is no place for any of these technical technical, knowledges ; they are not in print and never will be. They would be of no use to you. But you are welcome to all we know that is of Popular, use to you. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/peoplestextbookoOOmurp VARNISH I— THE VARNISH ITSELF WHAT IT IS A nothing that goes on everything, brightens it, keeps it clean and cleanable, covers it, takes the wear, prolongs its life, increases its beauty and usefulness — that is good varnish. Varnish that promises this, and fails to perform, goes off or worse, is bad varnish. Good and bad look alike in the liquid, or even when first put on, until the bad begins to go. IT DIFFERS FOR DIFFERENT USES The first thing to learn about varnish is that it ver- differs, and ought to differ, for different uses. There looked - are a great many kinds and adaptions of it. Salmon and fruit-cans are dipped in cheap varnish wide to keep them from rusting for a few weeks or differences - months. Paper book-covers, labels and maps are varnished to keep them clean. Agricultural imple- 6 Various ments, coffins, oil-cloth, patent leather, metal-work, uses of it. bric-a-brac, silverware, brass, gas-fixtures, machinery, engines, smoke-stacks, hardware, tools, utensils of wood and metal, are varnished for various reasons. We mention these various uses of varnish to show the extreme diversity of it — varnish is made to suit them all. It has also its nice adaptions, some of which you Fine have got to respect in the varnish you have the use differences, and care of, on your piano, carriage, house -work y and furniture. How to do this is told in the follow- ing pages. WHAT CARE TO GIVE IT AND WHAT TO EXPECT OF IT Poor varnish cannot be kept presentable. Good How long varnish lasts according to care and exposure. The does it last? exposure cannot be helped, but the care is within control. You want to know what care it is worth your while to give, and how long the varnish will last when it gets this care. People But people differ as to their varnish wants : and differ. r r ' they differ as to the pains they are willing to take to secure them. No book can be written to suit the standards Our book of all without some tax on the reader's judgment. must serve TT ..... . them ail. He must bear in mind that one man wants of varnish not much more than the saving of labor in keeping things whole and clean ; that another wants to maintain immaculate finish without regard to cost ; 7 and that others want all grades of varnish service between these extremes of economy and extravagance. We must not surfeit the extravagant man with econ- omy, nor the economical man with extravagance. But we must show them all how to get the particular service they want out of varnish. At the same time we must give the reader, if he will take the pains to receive it, a general intelligence on the subjects of varnish and varnishing, which shall be his guide when our par- ticular precepts are no longer fresh in mind. Ride no hobby. Practical knowledge, for the owner of varnished things. ON A CARRIAGE Carriage finish is very high, and the wear is the hardest wear that high finish ever has to encounter. A year in daily use is as long as a carriage ought to go, if it is to be always new. In occasional use it may go much longer. Whenever it shows slight signs of wear it should go to the shop to be put in prime condition again. The varnishing of a carriage is a very delicate job. A carriage-maker or repairer, if he be a man of fine notions, can be relied on to do it properly. No other trade is so intelligent in the use of varnish, or so exacting upon the varnish-maker. This does not mean that every carriage-maker does fine varnishing. Have nothing to do with an average man in any matter involving varnish. There is in every city (and usually in every village) a first-rate carriage-repairer. A trade is intelligent when there is in it this sprinkling of men who know Hard wear on fine finish. Read again how people differ. Re- vamishing. Most intelligent varnishing trade. What that means. 8 Care of a carriage. Ammonia. Dust and fingers. Mud. their work and maintain high standards in it. A car- riage-maker who does fine work in other respects is almost sure to varnish well. We wish we could say the same of all the varnishing trades. The proper care of a carriage is : (1) In the carriage-house, keep the ammonia fumes from the stable away from it. This is done by ventilating stable and carriage-room separately If the air from the stable gets into the the carriage-room, it brings ammonia with it. If the two rooms cannot be separate, let them be so well ventilated that the ammonia rising from the manure and urine shall not be strong enough to injure the varnish. Varnish is very sensitive to it. (2) In the carriage-house also, protect it from dust and especially fingering. A white-muslin cover is best ; and let it be washed occasionally. (3) After every using, wash the carriage immedi- ately with flowing water only. Dry mud never comes off entirely. (4) Keep the carriage-house warm in winter. ON A PIANO Very different. Finish the highest, wear the lightest The varnish on your piano looks like that on your carriage, but it is very different. Piano finish is as high as possible, even higher than carriage finish, though somewhat less susceptible to injury, finger-marks, for instance ; and the exposure of the piano is almost nothing. 9 Carriage varnish is tough,* to bear changes of weather ; the finishing coat of a carriage is too tough to be rubbed. Piano varnish is hard, to bear rub- bing ; it is too hard to be tough ; the finishing coat of a piano is polished as bright as a mirror. Pianos are varnished as carefully, much more laboriously, than carriages ; too laboriously. Most trades, with all their knowledge and skill, are encumbered with some traditions that hinder improvement. Piano-varnishers waste an enormous amount of labor and time on their work ; but they get the most perfect result of all the varnishing trades. Three months are required to put on, and dry, and rub, the dozen coats of the most perfectly finished piano. A great many pianos are varnished with common stuff ; but the finish is always high. A piano with less than a mirror-like polish would find an indif- ferent market. Almost any other fault would have better chance of escaping detection ; and, being detected, would be regarded with more indulgence. Pianos, therefore, whether well varnished or not, have the very highest polish the maker can give them. High polish is no indication of the wear of the varnish, though it passes for that, and always will with the uninformed. Indeed no one can tell, by * " Tough " or "elastic" means varnish that dents with the wood and does not crumble into dust with a blow or hard pressure. "Hard" means varnish that does not smudge when rubbed or polished. The two are opposites. Varnish cannot be "hard" and "tough." When it is "hard" it is not "tough;" and when it is "tough" it is not "hard." Contrast. Extrava- gant work. Round- about methods. Stingy material. Polish is no indication. There is much in- struction in this note. IO Depends on the varnish. Care of pianos. Dust. Grime. Re-polish- ing. How long will it last ? looking at it whether the varnish is good and will wear well or not. If the varnish is good and the piano is properly cared for, the finish will last as long as the instru- ment. If the varnish is poor, no possible care can keep it clear and sound for any length of time. The proper care of a piano with regard to the varnish is : (1) Dust it with a silk handkerchief lightly. A feather duster will dull the varnish a little every time it touches it. (2) Wash it once a year with a moist chamois. This takes off the dullness that comes of dirt, and seems to refresh the varnish ; but every washing leaves the polish a little less high than it was at the previous washing. (3) Once in four or five years get a good furniture- polisher to clean and polish it thoroughly. Your furniture-dealer has such a man. If the varnish was good to begin with, it will last for twenty years with this care ; but the finish will lose its mirror-like sharpness gradually. If the varnish was poor, such care will get the best possible service from it. ON A HOUSE-INTERIOR AND FURNITURE The standard of finish. The standard of finish on house-work and furni- ture is, as it ought to be, lower than that on pianos. The finest of house- and furniture-varnishing is, compared with piano-work, dull ; the gloss is rubbed II off ; the rubbing is carried to the extent of smooth- ness, but not to the extent of a high polish. You see fine ° n ^rk. the wood as if it were under glass. The color and grain are conspicuous ; not obscured by excessive reflection. Mirror-like brightness belongs to piano-varnishing ; plate-glass smoothness* is all that the finest of house- and furniture-work is permitted to aspire to. The cheapest proper house- and furniture-work is Qn com left bright, not rubbed at all. In medium work, mon work - the surface is rubbed just enough to diminish the gloss. The rubbing, if much of it is done, costs more Hqw to than all the rest of the work and the varnish economize on it. besides, and it does not affect the wear of var- nish ; so the proper way to economize is to omit or diminish the rubbing. But, if the rubbing is either not done or economized on, the fact is immediately apparent ; and a saving of cost in the varnish itself is not immediately apparent. The How not to saving, therefore, is almost always practiced where it €c °onit. ze is disastrous after a little, rather than where it shows immediately. *Some of the most beautiful woods are so rough in grain that Filling, they cannot be worked to a smooth and even surface with any amount of sand-papering; oak, for an extreme example: walnut is less extreme. All woods are covered with hollows; smooth woods [cherry and maple are smooth] with innumerable microscopic hollows, and rough ones with rough irregular groves. All such depresssons have to be filled before varnishing ; or, when the varnish is on, the surface will be as rough as the wood, conspicuously un- plate-glass-like. No wood is smooth enough to varnish without this filling; which is and remains, of course, transparent and invisible. 12 judge a Whether work is slighted or not depends on the notTythe circumstances under which it is done; and the by k the cir- varnish is so small a part of the thing that it gets CU und a e n r Ces overlooked, or, what is more likely, taken for granted ; which it ^ i s one f the most seductive of all the selling-devices was done. ° of man. A furniture-maker who makes upon honor, if he Examples, happens to be intelligent on it, uses durable varnish ; whether fine or not depends on whether his work is fine. A house gets varnished right, if the owner or architect orders it right, and then watches to see that it is done right. Good work You see how rare the most durable varnish must is very rare. be on house-work and furniture. It is only within a year or two that architects How to get have begun to give the proper attention to it. They used to allow the builder to use whatever he chose to furnish. The first sign of varnish-careful- ness on the part of architects was their specifying what make of varnish the painter should use ; but that is useless — all makers make different kinds ; and a varnish right for one use may not be right for another. Now they are finding out what particular varnish is right for their work and specifying it. How not to But, of course, most houses are varnished without getlt * supervision by architects. Painters buy whatever they are willing to pay for ; and the result is a little saving on the varnish itself and very great waste on the property. The rule. it ma y be taken for granted that a house is badly varnished, unless it was built by an architect who 13 compelled the builder to force the painter to use the proper varnish, and then the architect watched while the work was going on, and saw that his specifications were carried out. The practice in varnishing furniture is somewhat better. There is no compulsion upon the furniture- maker but an enlightened self-interest. That is enough ; but not every one feels it. Furniture-makers, house-builders, and painters be- long to the less intelligent varnishing trades. They resist fine varnish as if it were not an ally but an enemy. First-rate varnish for house-work (the varnish itself) is not so fine as that for pianos and carriages ; it is as durable. Furniture varnish can be as fine as any. The putting on has less to do with the wear and care. If the varnish itself is good, it will last for twenty years, more or less, according to how it is cared for. If the varnish is poor, it may rust in a month or a year, or go off gradually in two or three years and leave the wood bare and dull if not sticky. It cannot be saved by any care you can give it. Varnish that fails wastes more than itself and the work expended on it. One does not tear a house down because the varnish is not quite clear ; but the house is shabby-genteel ; and, if not restored betimes, it sooner or later comes to the fate of the shabby- genteel. The property in it is gone. There is too much of the shabby-genteel in this country. The proper care of varnish on house-work and furniture is : Has to be guarded at evety stage. Furniture. Less intelligent varnishing trades. Limita- tions. How long will it last: Shabby- genteel. 14 ' r f k Wash it occasionally wil fumitie. not ) 5 an d once m a Y ear or two ruD it with furniture- housework Wash it occasionally with soap and tepid water (not polish. * II- HOW TO GET GOOD VARNISH WHEN B U YING VARNISHED THINGS HOW TO GET IT ON CARRIAGES Carriage- . . , work com- The varnishing done by carnage makers is, on the paratively systematic, whole, of a higher grade than that of any other trade ; for these reasons : (i) The sale of a carriage depends very much on the finish — this secures high finish, whether the varnish is good or not ; (2) the wear on carriage varnish is very hard — this secures the use of durable varnish, at least by makers who make for wear ; (3) the general intelligence of carriage-makers with regard to varnish is higher than that of any other trade — they avoid mistakes pretty generally ; (4) their work comes back for repairs, they are held responsible for it — this is one of the strongest reasons for making it good ; (5) people are better judges of carriage-work than of most manufactures — tends to keep up quality ; (6) carriage-makers are known, and their work is "Furniture-polish (which you get at your drug-store) requires no tools, not even a brush, and no skill. You rub it on with a bit of canton flannel, and rub till dry. It puts new life in the varnish, and keeps it fresh in appearance and fresh in its hold on the wood. But it is not varnish, and it does not take the place of varnish ; it does not fill up scratches. It only enlivens, apparently brings to life, prolongs the life of, varnish. Do not rely on furniture-polish when the varnish is gone. *5 known where their work is sold — it is easy to learn their grade and the grade of their work by inquiry — this keeps them to quality. It is easy to see that no one need buy a poor carriage for want of the means of judgment ; and no one there- fore, need get poor varnish on it. There is, however, a market for buggies and sleighs and carriges all the way down to impossible prices — all varnished — and there is a market for varnish to give them all the selling shine that attracts your money. You want a wearing shine. You must buy of a maker whose work is made to wear. And ask him about his varnish. The intelligent buyer gets well served, if he makes the proper use of his intelligence. If you would rather pay a little more and get good varnish instead of a sham, pay another little more and get tough spokes in your wheels instead of brittle. Good varnish and other carriage-work are not to be got without judgment and money. Good car- riage, good varnish. Poor car- riage, poor varnish. Talk about it. Pay for it and look out for it. HOW TO GET IT ON PIANOS There is a great deal of mystery in the piano. It does not belong to us to unravel it all. So far as varnish is concerned, the piano is simply a piece of cabinet-work. It is fine or fine looking — all pianos are one or the other. They are generally well varnished. The finish is so very high as to be exceedingly delicate. Steel is not delicate ; the edge of a razor is. There is nothing else in the house that requires such dainty handling to No more mystery in it than in any other cabinet- work. The finish is delicate. i6 keep it immaculate. People do not know how frail it is — this highly polished surface of varnish on the piano — they do not give it the care that befits its delicacy. to F be Ur due P to The failure of varnish on a piano is, therefore, much W ca n re° f more likely to be due to some fault in the care than to the varnish itself or the varnishing. Fraudu- On the other hand there are enormous numbers of lent, varnish and aii. pianos so utterly bad that, if we should describe them literally, you would think they could hardly hold together long enough to get from the shop to the home. The first piano a family buys is apt to be one of these counterfeits. It would be a waste of virtue to put good varnish on them. It is wholesome to bear in mind how many people there are among our sixty- five millions who keep themselves poor by believing impossible tales and buying impossible things. Pay a n°d r h Your dealer keeps several makes of pianos ; one look out for first-class ; one less well-known ; another still less, or it. ' ' ' known less favorably ; another — but why go further down ? Risk nothing below the second-best — we cannot all have best. A piano made to cheat with, of course, has the selling shine ; but no one makes a piano for honest business without the wearing shine. ^* To get good varnish on your piano, then, get a decent piano. HOW TO GET IT ON HOUSE-INTERIORS Talk with if you are building a house and employ an architect, him. • , i i your part is easy ; but you have got to attend to it. Do not take for granted that he will attend to the varnish and varnishing adequately. The probability is that he does not know very much about either. ^ e v e es th J{ten. Architects are just beginning to learn that they ought tlon t0 lt to know about varnish. How shall they find it out ? They go to their books and get nothing ; they turn to the cyclopedias — nothing ; libraries — nothing. Their technical journals contain about all there is in print that is useful to them ; and this we ourselves provide.* The more discerning and independent-minded men He h ™ v £ not among architects see how important these instructions thought of are, if true ; and they test and apply them. But it takes some time for knowledge to get about, especially when it comes from an unexpected source. The usual course is for knowledge to come from schools and get into professions, then into factories. Schools know nothing of varnish. The architect's business is to seek and secure the His dut Z t0 serve the owner's interest. The standard of honor is, doubtless, owner - as high among architects as that of any profession. He must inform himself on materials, methods, styles, devices. This alone is an enormous and never-ending task outside of his business. Something had to come last ; it was varnish. Construction, of course, is more urgent than finish. * We have a series of papers on varnish and varnish-work in the architects' weekly journals, which began in 1889 and has now reached No. 150. In these papers we: (1) exhort architects to recognize the importance of varnish to their work ; (2) set up standards of varnish and work ; and (3) try to teach the architects how to enforce these standards on contractors and workmen. These papers are advertisements, just as this book is an advertise- ment. In our opinion, the setting up of knowledge where ignorance has prevailed is the best of all advertisements for a business founded on knowledge and conducted with knowledge. i8 Contrac- tor's duty not to serve the owner. Painters slippery. Look to your architect. Risky. Not an adequate substitute for an architect. Economical job. The contractor's business is to go by the specifica- tions — no more, no less — he has to be watched to see that he does it. There is another obstacle. House-painters do the work. No trade is more accustomed to substitutes and shams ; no trade is less accustomed to being held responsible ; few are less intelligent on their work ; and the painter's business is to cover his tracks — he has to be watched. Your part is to see that your architect shares the rising appreciation of varnish, and is not dazed by the glory of it when new, but awake to the permanent ser- vice it can render if good, and to the difficulties he has got to encounter in getting that service out of it. If you are building a house and not employing an architect, you intend, of course, a more economical job. You have got to depend on your painter to some extent ; but you can check him somewhat by our Directions for Using Transparent Wood Finish, to which you are welcome. The aim of this book is to tell you your part, not to teach you details of your varnisher's work — you cannot become an expert in varnishing, nor even a confident critic on it, by reading. The most you can do is to learn enough of the general principles of it to enable you to understand your varnisher and to see that he does his work according to those directions. We ought, however, to state clearly, what we have implied on another page, that an economical varnish job can be durable, if the economy is put on the work and not on the varnish. What we mean is precisely 19 this : — The proper varnish for interior house-work costs $2.50 a gallon ; for the front-door, etc., $4. The custom of painters is to pay about $1.25. This saving (or cheating, whichever it may be) will waste the whole job and a great deal more. Allow no saving on varnish. Save on the work as much as you like ; rub little or not at all. The varnish itself determines the wear ; the rubbing has nothing to do with it. Rubbing costs a great deal more than the varnish ; put your economy all on the rubbing. The painter advises the opposite way. He is used to cheap varnish at 90 cents to $1.25 a gallon, and probably thinks it " good enough for house-work." If you direct him to get Transparent Wood Finish and do not watch him, he will probably use his favorite " hard oil finish," charge you the higher price, and pocket the difference. Ignorant painters hate fine varnish as the devil hates holy water. See that your painter has favorable circumstances : clean and dry wood-work for a full day before he begins ; as little dust as possible ; drafts cut off ; venti- lation ; and time. If you make good work impossible, do not complain of results. If you are revarnishing. — There is an enormous amount of this troublesome work to be done. Most of the varnishing done hitherto has been done with an inferior varnish and ought to be done over. It is in all ways and stages of " going off." If it would really go off, disappear, it would be less troublesome No ; it loses its usefulness and beauty, but sticks ; you find how it sticks when you try to get it off. -Allow no saving on the varnish. Put your economy . on the rubbing. Beecher's recipe for good coffee: Go to all the principal hotels and make it as they don't. Favorable circumstan- ces. Revarnish- ing house- work. 20 Much of this old varnish will never get renewed — if not, it has ruined the houses — but much of it will be. We must tell you how to go at the job. We take for granted that you have had enough of wasteful economy, and that now you propose to have a good job. The first thing to do is to clear the house, take out carpets and furniture. Go over the whole of the wood- work, repairing whatever needs repairing. Scrape the varnish off till you get to the wood, being careful of corners and edges on moldings. Do not put good varnish on top of poor varnish ; both will be poor if you do. Give the new a hold on the wood direct. If you give the job to faithful and competent men, or have a varnish-wise architect superintend the work, you will be well paid for the cost and trouble. But you will get a new view of the saving of money on varnish ! Varnish over graining or plain paint. — Let the paint be clean ; and, if it needs retouching, retouch it before the varnish goes on. One coat of varnish is better than none ; and two are enough. The object of varnish on grained or other paint is to save nine-tenths of the labor of keeping it clean ; and, of course, for beauty. Whatever sort of a job you have in house-work, use Transparent Wood Finish, Interior and Exterior ; the latter for the front door and any other part exposed to sun and dust. The Interior lasts as long as you are likely to care to have it last. The Exterior lasts about a year — a year is as long as you can expect it to last if exposed to the sun. The price of having your out- side door presentable is to varnish it once a year. 2 I HOW TO GET IT ON FURNITURE You buy of a dealer, not of the maker ; you do not know the maker : you do not even know who he is. . Precise 7 ■* information The dealer may or may not know the quality of the difficult, varnish on his furniture. There are difficulties in the way of your getting precise information. But furni- ture-making is one of the great American industries. It engages some of the most capable men in business. Their factories are managed for profit and with keen eyes on the public demand. The aggregare cost per year of varnish, including the putting it on, in the great factories, is too much to be slighted. Their work is done by system and with intelligence. Every one of these factories makes a great deal of furniture, such as the bulk of people want — The fa ft neraI extravagant — that is exactly the word for it — furni- ture made to suit the taste of our most extravagant people, our prosperous common people. Extravagant people are people who go beyond their means. They have got to economize somewhere ; they try to put their economies where they will not be too conspicu- ous ; not in design or finish. Modern American furniture — modern means within a year or two — would be a wonder at the Columbus lik^h^ever Show, if we were not so familiar with it. seen worWi This great industry does not varnish 50-cent before ' kitchen chairs as it varnishes $50 parlor chairs, and it does not varnish things to be used as it varnishes things to be looked at. 22 Luxurious On the other hand there are small makers-to-order makers do ^not spoil who do luxurious work for the rich — design and make with poor a table or writing-desk, chair or sofa, side-board or cabinet, easel or book-case, bed-room suite, or whole outfit — they make it unique and to suit a particular want or notion. They get a thousand dollars for what the great factory sells for a hundred — except — the machine-made factory product is common and theirs is unique. We make for the maker-to-order a series of var- nishes, one for light woods, another for dark, etc., etc., with all the refinements of fineness in them. is G Je?ting r ^o lt is g ettin S t0 be tlie fact tnat furniture is varnished vanished we ^ or ^ according to whom and what use it is made for. The best you can do is to go by that ; avoid the over-showy and choose with your severest taste. Ill— WE HAVE COMMON INTEREST WITH YOU VARNISH-INTELLIGENCE General The trouble is lack of intelligence on the subject, knowledge. Dotn among those that direct the work and those that do it. They imagine they know ; but what they " know " is mostly wrong. As Josh Billings says. " It is better not to know so many things that ain't so." The workmen especially slight and bedevil it. Archi- tects are supposed to know about building materials. Here is an important building-material ; they are beginning to give a litte attention to it. Builders do not care. And owners give no thought to it. 23 The remedy is the same as for almost all our defects : intelligence : varnish-intelligence. We are a well-dressed people. We are not experts in silk and wool, dress-making and tailoring ; but we know good clothes and how to get them. That is clothing-intelligence. What we want is varnish-intelligence. Not to be experts in making or putting it on with the brush ; but to know a good job when we see it, and how to get it. That is varnish intelligence. The remedy : knowledge. Just what we mean. It is practicable. WHY WE PUBLISH THIS BOOK Our dealing is chiefly with first-class makers of var- nished things, such as cars, carriages, musical instru- Our trade, ments, furniture, cabinet-work, etc. ; with a few of the stores also. We seek whatever trade requires fine varnish ; but, having larger facilities than we can keep employed on 0urpollcy - fine varnish alone, we make a good deal of lower grades. We can make the finest of varnish at lower prices than we could otherwise afford, because of this part-occupation with lower grades ; but we systematic- ally discourage the use of poor varnish. We put all stress on quality. One cent saved on the varnish, if at the cost of quality, is a dollar lost on the varnished thing. Our way is to adapt a varnish to its use, to make m ^hod. it as good as we can for its use, the very best we can ; and, in fixing the price, we consult nobody. The thin end of our wedge is quality. 24 Prices. Varnish- buyers. Varnish- makers. Our object and means. There is an enormous demand for varnish at prices a little below ours. If we should put our prices down, the demand and supply would go down just about so much. There is nothing to value varnish by but the price of the best ; the other makers make " as good as Murphy's " for fifty cents or a dollar less a gallon. Most of the users of varnish buy by price ; some try to combine a little saving with quality ; some are so glad to get the best possible varnish, they have no dis- position to haggle over the cost of it. Most of the makers of varnish make for the price- market ; some are beginning to think about quality ; a few are actually competing with us almost on our own ground. Our purpose is to increase the use of good varnish — we take our chances of the making — our means, to increase the knowledge of what good varnish does. We address ourselves to those most nearly con- cerned, the enjoyers of it, even though you cannot be our customers. Hence this book.