Welsh red paint?

[Cloudscape]

More than once, locally, I've heard mention of 'traditional' red paint. I have found traces of an orange-y colour on old oak windows. A couple of neighbours have traces of a pinker red on stones around their inglenook fireplaces. The paint has a name, and I'm endeavouring locally to find out what it is. Someone gave me some old stable doors that have all clearly been painted red in the past. I was told (again) that this was 'traditional'.

I can't find any mentions anywhere of a 'traditional' red in Wales. Is there such a thing? And going back in time, what would the red have been? Iron oxide?

 

[fjpdesigns]

Red lead?

 

[Nemesis]

Alas, Peter who used to post here sadly died, but his website lives on, with much useful information:

http://www.realpaints.com/history.htm

And there is always:

http://www.traditionalpaintforum.org.uk/pages/2action/smudi1.html


Red is a very traditional Cumbrian colour also, doors and door and window surrounds (daft really as the stone is usually red underneath). These days it's very brash and glossy stuff usually.

http://www.cumbria-industries.org.uk/chemicals.htm#paint

Red seems to have derived from a number of sources, in Sweden Falu red:

http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/~ra826/group5/mg/falured.html

And the Forth Road Bridge:

http://www.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=000-000-512-288-C

Not sure what was used here:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/paint-the-town-red.html

:shock:

 

[Cloudscape]

Thanks very much - good leads there. Peter's website is lovely. It's so refreshing to find something as clear and succinct as that. I'm intrigued that 'pillar-box red' is derived from the heating of chrome yellow. I wonder if the use of red is down to colour fashion, colour availability or made a kind of statement. I think I'm looking for an excuse to use some. :wink:

 

[Nemesis]

For wash or paint?

I've just been doing some delving and it does look in some pics I have that Welsh 'red' is more like 'red lead' paint than a 'pinky' red.

Gervase no doubt will know more:

http://www.horganandwebb.com


Some smashing pics on his site now too, of work he has done.

http://www.horganandwebb.com/about.html

Ty Mawr sells coloured limewashes, several shades of 'red'.

 

[Gervase]

Oh, you flatterer!
There seem to have been two kinds of Welsh red - one an oil-based paint used for woodwork and corrugated iron (or sinc in the local usage), which was a dark red, almost maroon in colour, and one for limewash, which was brighter like Venetian red.
The limewash tint is an iron oxide pigment which was brought from the ironworks in the Forest of Dean, whereas the oil paint, as far as I can ascertain, was made from litharge, or red lead, mixed with iron oxide pigment. Pretty poisonous stuff!

 

[Cloudscape]

I'm looking at it for woodwork, possibly stable doors, maybe even the odd external door or the windows down one side (where they appear to have been red before). Can one use lead paint these days? I don't intend to lick the doors very often. :shock:

 

[Nemesis]

Yes but only II* and I listed... no doubt though something similar can be found for 'lesser' buildings! Somewhere like Rose of Jericho can no doubt match it.

(Not flattery at all - you know me, I tells it like it is... and it looks bluddy good!)

Talking of corru - have a look at Ben Tindall's Cairngorms building:

http://www.benjamintindallarchitects.co.uk/BTA_News.htm

( I was mid 'conversation' with Peter on this site, about paint, expecting a post the next day - it never came. I do miss him, he was such an expert, not just paint, and the person who supplied us with genuine 'pit' lime. Wonderful stuff.)

 

[Nemesis]

Here's a little more from Peter from this site:

http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/ppuk_discovering_article_019.shtml

I still have a tin of 'black lead' stove polish he made up for me from an old recipe he had. Lovely gunmetal finish, far superior to anything else I have used.

 

[Cloudscape]

That article is great. :shock: I particularly like the idea of lime-wash being used as "a night-light margin for doorways". How incredibly sensible.

 

[Nemesis]

I think that was possibly the origin of 'donkeystoning' front steps - to make them more visible in dark streets.

 

[Gervase]

I'm so glad that Period Property has preserved Peter's notes. He really was a one-off - an incredibly nice chap who knew a huge amount about his subject, and his ridiculously untimely death was a terrible blow.
I did look into trying to continue his business and chatted a lot to his partner, Joan, who is just as nice as Peter. Sadly Peter died intestate, Joan had a farm with a flock of rare-breed organic sheep to tackle single-handed and his two children were travelling the world at the time, so matters were left to his solicitor. A substantial offer was made by Another Paint Company, and, as far as I know, the Real Paint Company has now been subsumed into APC never to be seen again. Which is a great shame, as his paints were superb.
Still, it's nice to see some of his great knowledge is still there for others to enjoy.

 

[Nemesis]

He knew a great deal about a vast amount, re conservation and historic buildings, and he was indeed a lovely man. He was one of the driving forces behind the resurrection of SPAB in Scotland.

http://www.spab.org.uk/html/spab-in-scotland/events/?PHPSESSID=2c514b3df205

(The Glasite Meeting House is a wonderful building!)

His lime was wonderful - you called him up, he got up even earlier than usual, and dug it out of its pit at Great Asby. Rather better than a trip to J*wson's for a bag of ******!

What a terrible pity that you coudn't rescue the company!

It's odd that his website is still on the web. There are other things he wrote which are probably still available.

Peter Maitland Hood, Some Painterwork Practices, Methods & Techniques of the 17th Century, (Commissioned Report, 1977)

http://www.junemcewan.biz/pages/hist/kdr2.html

http://www.junemcewan.biz/hist.html

 

[Moo]

According to that fascinating 'Paint Matters' article, traditional paint-makers relied on ingredients such as animal fat and animal-skin glue. How can today's vegans/vegetarians get round this?

 

[Nemesis]

By not using those paints - and shellac. Not all 'natural' or 'traditional' paints require them. You don't have to use the sort of distemper bound with size.

It's doubtful that many paints use those ingredients these days anyhow. Alternatives can be found.

It's the same way that vegetarians and vegans 'get round' not eating meat or (vegans) using animal products and by-products. Not hard.

Soap can be made from vegetable fat, not tallow, so linseed oil added to limewash instead of tallow, etc etc...

 

[Moo]

I'm sorry to be even dimmer than usual, but I've always understood that Peter Maitland-Hood was the best person to go to if one wanted to use truly traditional paints, and he only seemed to use animal products - 'For distemper we generally use rabbit and hare skin glue. For lime wash we produce our own tallow to add water-resistance outdoors and lactic casein to increase elasticity and permeability for indoor use.'
Where can I find out about alternative ingredients?

 

[Gervase]

I'm not sure, to be honest. Tallowed limewash is quite different to that done with linseed oil. I imagine you'd need a hard vegetable fat like palm oil or vegetarian suet to get the saponification, but that's really just a guess. I know tallow works, and have never had any reason to use anything else, given that our hogget and mutton produce quite enough of it.

 

[Nemesis]

But Peter doesn't make paint any longer so it's all rather irrelevant isn't it? And those very traditional paints were mostly used for serious historic restoration projects. Possibly by those who, you know, kill things to eat them and wear their skins?

Distemper (oil bound) doesn't need size I don't think, Limewash doesn't need tallow - it just makes it more water resistant, but for many applications that's not required, and I recall discussions with Peter about additives such as linseed oil (and casein of course, although not for vegans).

I have no doubt had Peter still been alive he would have experimented with alternatives had he been asked. He did use a variety of oils for his oil paints (poppy seed was one) and they didn't need animal glues. The main difference between his trad paints and modern ranges was he used proper ground pigments, not dyes, and as he put it - it's like making a fruit cake by hand, and making one in a high speed mixer - in one the fruit is suspended in the cake mix, in the other it's mush. Same with pigments, what gives traditional paint its depth and finish is the pigments and the way they are dispersed and reflect light.

You can replicate the colours in modern paints, but you lose so much else.

http://www.spab.org.uk/html/advice/technical-qas/technical-qa-12-soft-distemper/

See further reading list.

http://www.spab.org.uk/html/advice/technical-qas/technical-qa-18-limewash/

http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/v1/interiorpaint.pdf?legacypath=/interiorpaint.pdf