Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/187

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Marcw 1, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 171


say 4in., perpendicular upstand all along one side, 13in. at high end, and 10in. at low end, or according to its fall, for sole or bottom of gutter; and Zin. at high end, and 10in, at low end, to go up roof. After lead has been thus ‘‘set up,” before being put into its site, it has also to be set up at each end, so as to form upstands for ends of gutter, which is done, according to the style of the locality, either by workifig up, or ‘‘ bossing,” as some term it, each end, so that the lead may fit its site; or else by bending up the ends and turning round the corners, which latter system in some places receives the cant terms of ‘ pig-lugging” or ‘‘dog-earing” the corners, which may be explained as follows :— Take a piece of white paper, 6in. by 4in. as per Fig. 5, and draw a line within it and all round it half-an-inch from its outer edge as per dotted line, Fig. 5; bend up paper at dotted line, square all round. In attempting to do so it will be found that the corners re- quire to be bent out across or along the diagonals, when they take the form shown at LL, Fig. 6. Press the corners close together, and then turn them round, as shown at M M, and a copy is produced of what is often done with ends of gutters. After the gutter has been put into its site, the ‘‘doubling” (or wooden fillet) has to be put on under top of lead on roof, as at N, Fig. 4. ; while for front of gutter at ‘ blocking-course” two things have to be done—yiz., an ‘‘ apron” has to be put on, and an overflow pipe has to be put in, so that if gutter were choking up, the water would run off harmlessly by this overflow pipe O, Fig. 4, instead of getting over top edge of lead gutter, and so damaging property. The “ blocking-course,” we shall say, is 6in. across the top; the ‘ apron,” therefore, having to cover it, and go down each side, overlapping gutter inside as per P, Fig. 4, will be about 10in. broad, which gives lin. over front, Gin. across top, and 3in. down in- side. Of course there may be many ‘‘ block- ing-courses”’ broader than this, which will require the lead to be broader; but what is saidabove shows the principle. The ‘‘aprons” on top of “ blocking-courses” are held fast by lead buttons or rivets, as shown by Fig. 7, which are made as follows :—Before apron is put on holes are cut in top of stone blocking- course about 1}in. deep, and about 3in. wide, every 2ft. or dft. ; after lead apron 1s put on, asmall round hole, about Zin. in diameter, iscut in lead right over centre of hole in stone; this hole in lead is made wider by beating lead out and up at same time, as shown in Fig. 7, a small portable ferrule, the size of lead button, being then put over hole. The button ismade by pouring in lead as per sketch, In some cases, when the gutters are very shallow—7.e., when they are laid within a few inches of top of blocking-course—there is no apron used,the lead being put on allin one piece over blocking-course, across gutter channel and up roof. Whenever gutters are laid in this manner—which is sometimes done for cheapness—and no overflow pipe put in, care must be taken that the lead is put up roof a sufficient distance, so that water, if gutter gets choked up and overflows, may run over front of blocking-course, and not oyer top of Jead next roof. In other cases, where the gutter channel behind blocking-course is a sufficient distance below its top, the apron, instead of being put on across top of block- ing-course as per P (Fig. 4), may be put on inside blocking-course, a raggle being cut for it, as per Q (Fig. 8). And, as in this case, there may also be sufficient depth for drips, the carpenter can lay wood accordingly ; and Fig. 9 shows longitudinal section of lead where such drips S S are put in, the water being taken away from centre of gutter as at T. An overflow pipe, R (Fig. 8), ought also to be put in. In some cases, instead of there being only one pipe, as at Fig. 9, there may be two pipes—viz., one at each end, as per Fig. 10. The drips S S, SS should be about 3in. deep —no less, if possible. It sometimes happens, especially when the drips are considerably shallower, or less than 3in., that when lead has been on a number of years a quantity of dirt, soot, sand, lime, &e., gets blown up between the two thicknesses of lead, espe- cially at corners, and in rainy and blowy


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Lanes Fic.l0 ° I weather this dirt, getting wet, acts as a sort of conductor or sponge to suck up water inside, and so over edge of lead. J had an example of this lately, when the upper lead at several drips had to be lifted up a little so as to get out stuff which had blown in and gathered there, and so kept the places damp. (Lo be continued.) —<—$—_@—__— DECORATIVE PROCESSES. STAINING, GRAINING, AND INLAYING OF WOODS AND MARBLES. By an EXPERIENCED WORKMAN. (Continued from page 150.) HE grounds for inlaying should be got up to as level and smooth a surface as pos- sible, so that the work when finished may have a fine surface, whether left simply yarnished or mounted and polished. There are two methods practised of transferring the design to the surface to be ornamented— namely, tracing and pouncing. In tracing, the back of the design is rubbed over with either fine whitening, dry whitelead, pipeclay, French chalk, or any other convenient white powder, if the ground work is dark enough in colour to show the white tracing; but if the ground be white, charcoal or a bare rub- bing of Indian red or coloured chalk may be used, The design is then placed upon the sur- face to be ornamented, and the lines traced with a blunt stylus or tracing point. When the pounce is used the design must be per- forated with a fine needle or pricker, and the white or coloured chalk is powdered and tied up in a few folds of fine muslin, thus forming the pounce bag, and when the design is in its place it is dusted over with this, which leaves the design in white dots; or the cloth rub- ber, as before described in these pages, may be used instead of the pounce bag. Our ground work and design being now ready, we will take as an illustration a design containing four different woods—namely, maple, walnut, hare-wood, and tulip-wood. As the same method is followed in a design containing a dozen different woods, we shall thus get a clear description without risk of confusion.

We will suppose that we are about to decorate the panels of a door with the woods above- named, and that we wish the work to appear when finished as an inlayed design of maple, hare-wood, and tulip-wood upon walnut. In this case the whole of the panel will be first grained maple, that being the lightest wood, the graining colour being secured in the ordinary way with beer as the medium for working with. We may now proceed either to varnish the whole of the maple, which will then form a ground for graining the other woods upon; or we may trace or pounce the design upon the maple, and pick in or pencil that part of the design which has to remain maple with a stopping varnish, such as white hard varnish, Canada balsam, Brunswick black, or any other quick-drying varnish, which may afterwards be dissolved, and removed by either turpentine, spirits of wine, or naphtha, the object or main point being to use a varnish insoluble in water and yet capable of being removed when required. Any turpentine varnish may be used by adding a little sweet oil to it, but only in sufficient quantity to prevent its drying too hard, and yet to allow it to dry so as to be able to work over it without smearing, and to make a sharply cut and clear outline to the ornament. With this varnish we paint in the portion of the ornament to remain maple. We now grain in the next lightest wood, hare-wood, taking care to cover all parts whereyer this wood will appear in the design; or the panel may be grained all over its surface, which is the safest plan. The design is again placed upon the panel, and those parts which have to appear as hare-wood are traced in and secured with the stopping varnish as before. We now grain the tulip- wood. ‘Trace in as before and stop with the varnish. When this is dry, we then grain the walnut, going over the whole of the panel and previous ornament with it, using beer as the medium for graining with. This being dry, we now take a large camel’s-hair pencil or tin tool, and tur- pentine or spirits of wine, according to the nature of the stopping varnish used, and satu- rate a portion of the panel with it. When it has had a sufficient time to soak through the upper coats of graining colour and reach the varnish, the spirit will soften the varnish, and by gently and carefully working with the spirit and brush, the whole of the stopping varnish which covers the maple, hare-wood, and tulip-wood will be removed, and the various woods will appear clean, clear, and sharp, all the interstices between the lines and ornament being walnut. It will be at once evident that by using this method we have all the various woods at one level—that is to say, that although there are several woods, the whole haye only one surface, just as if the panel had only been grained with one wood. We thus secure flatness, which is absolutely necessary to the success of the work. Some grainers will grain one wood, and then varnish it with ordinary hard-drying varnish, which cannot be remoyed in the manner described above, and when one is dry they will grain and varnish another wood, and so on to the end, the result in the finish being that a rough and uneven surface is pro- duced which spoils the appearance of the work, and which cannot be afterwards reme- died. It will often happen that the design will have to be edged with a fine black or a white line. If the white line is required, the design must be traced on the panel as before (which, of course, must be either white or cream colour), and the line must be pen- cilled in, with the stopping varnish, before the ground is stained with any graining colour. ‘The various woods may then be grained in and stopped as before described. If the line is required to be black, the panel must be covered with a coat of finely-ground drop black, mixed with beer, evenly and smoothly laid on, and only of sufficient thick- ness to cover or form a solid and opaque coating. On this the design must be traced