contractor

Every Home In America Needs A Roof – Make easy money giving home owners what they want, and make Huge commissions on every Sale when installing new roofs. This Roofing Business Startup Kit has everything you need to build your financial future.
Contractor Roofing Business – Ebook Manual and Sales Training Video

Former Middle East Security Contractor Reveals All. Now at last – an eBook that takes the mystery out of finding a job and working overseas as a contractor. Get the inside info on how to get hired and live and thrive as an overseas contractor.
Contractor Secrets Exposed

A Step By Step System To Generate More Leads For Any Type Of Construction Biz From Home Remodeling, Improvement, Roofing, Painting, Plumbing, Etc…without A Huge Marketing Budget! New Product On CB In Great Converting Niche With Little Competition!
Get More Contractor Leads.

There are many con artists in our world just waiting to take advantage, so it is up to each
individual to be on the lookout and to take measures to prevent from you being scammed. When
building a home, or remodeling for that matter, never, never, never pay anyone up front for work to
be done. Before you begin building or remodeling you need to find out about all the information on
how and when to pay your contractors and sub-contractors and you should never have to pay for any
job not completed as agreed upon. Discuss the payment terms with your contractor up front, before
any building contract is signed, to break down the entire job into specific phases. And only then,
after that phase is completed and approved by the inspector, should that specific payment be made.

I grow up in a family of engineers and contractors. My grandfather is an engineer; my uncles are engineers; my aunt is an engineer, my father is a contractor. It is like growing up in a family of policemen.

WAX FINISHES AND OIL-RUBBED FINISHES

LACQUERS
THERE has been a much needed change in the use of the word lacquer
of late to describe transparent coatings. It has been used in such a
general way for years that one had little idea of the composition of any
product called lacquer. The Chinese and Japanese lacquers are simply
varnishes made of oils and gums peculiar to those countries. In the
United States the word lacquer has been used to describe certain
varnish coatings of a highly transparent nature which produce a dull
lustre on metals and other surfaces. Some were used for decoration
and some simply to exclude the air from brass, copper and other
polished surfaces to preserve their brilliance. Some were air-drying
and some baking varnishes.
Today the word lacquer is rapidly being accepted as a designation for
the cellulose pyroxylin coatings and it will be well if it is used in the
future exclusively to designate these materials. All others really are
varnishes and should be so described and referred to.
The word lacquer is derived from lac, a gum resin produced by lac
insects which feed upon the sap of certain trees in India. Shellac
varnish is a solution of this gum in alcohol. When refined and purified
it makes a nearly colorless coating and one which is quite transparent.
In this form it has been long used, as stated before, for preserving the
lustre on highly polished metals like brass, copper, etc. The shellac
gum is also colored with aniline and other coal tar colors, the spiritsolubles,
and is then called lacquer. It has been greatly used on
furniture and art objects and when many coats are applied thin,
remarkably durable finishes result. When these lacquers are baked at
temperatures between 100 and 200 degrees the gum is fused, the
lacquer is made to adhere more firmly to the surface and is a more
durable finish.
The Chinese and Japanese lacquers are not like the shellac lacquers.
They are made from the juice of trees which grow in those countries,
trees which are related to the sumac and dogwood known to America.
After collecting this juice which looks like that which one squeezes
from milkweed, it is purified and worked through many operations to
make varnish. It is used in its natural white, transparent state and also
is colored with various pigments and metallic substances which make
it resemble enamels. These lacquers are used on woods and metals
and for the finest work about three dozen operations are required to
bring the job along to the finish of a perfect character. Such lacquer is
not baked but, strange as it may seem, dries best in cold, damp and
dark closets. The most valuable pieces of this lacquerware, boxes,
trays, vases, et^,, required from five to twenty years to complete the
work.
Pyroxylin Nitro-Cellulose Lacquers.The lacquers in which we are so
much interested today as they are used on furniture are not products
of very recent inventions as is commonly thought, but are the result of
perfecting a lacquer which has been used over a dozen years. The first
lacquers of this type made and used a few years ago were thin, so
very thin that to secure a body of finish equal to oil and gum varnishes
from fourteen to twenty coats of lacquer were required. The trouble
was that at that time a very limited amount of the solid matter could
be used in each, gallon of liquid. When enough of the solid matter
(nitrated cotton) was put into a gallon to make a thick film when dry,
it was so thick and sticky that it could not be sprayed upon the
surface. These early lacquers were transparent and white. A little later
a small amount of color could be added, but not enough to make the
beautiful lacquer enamels we now have. The early lacquers also had no
gloss. The reason for the great progress in the use of lacquers in the
last year or two is the fact that the chemists have learned how to
overcome the disadvantages of the old-time cellulose lacquers by
producing what is called low viscosity cotton which can be added in
sufficient amount to each gallon of liquid to make a thick, transparent
film on the surface coated when dry. They have also given us lacquers
which will carry, not only sufficient color pigments to produce the
brilliant colors noted on automobiles and all manner of merchandise,
but also lacquers which will carry opaque pigments; thus we have
lacquer enamels. They do not carry as much of the opaque pigments
as the oil and gum varnish white enamels, but sufficient for the
purpose.
It should be noted that pyroxylin, nitre-cellulose lacquers are not
related in any way to the other kinds of lacquers which have been
used for a great many years, for centuries in the case of the Chinese
and Japanese lacquers. These latter lacquers are varnish and shellac
compositions of gums, resins and oils, while the pyroxylin lacquers are
of entirely different composition; and although they do contain a little
of the gum resins used in oil varnishes, as an incidental means of
increasing elasticity, they can be made entirely without these gums.
A brief outline of the manufacture of pyroxylin lacquers is interesting.
The word cellulose is the chemist’s name for all vegetable fibre.
Ordinary cotton and wood are the chief forms of cellulose. Paper is
simply a physical combination of cotton and wood vegetable fibres,
and waste paper is, therefore, used as well as cotton in the making of
lacquers.
The first step in the making of lacquer is the treatment of cotton with a
mixture of sulphuric acid and nitric acid. The short-fibre cotton which
remains after long-fibre cotton is stripped from the plants is the grade
used; it is called linters cotton, and after washing, cleaning and
bleaching; it is ready for the acid treatment when it is dry. The cotton
takes up the nitric acid and is then called cellulose nitrate, nitroceilulose
or nitro-cotton. This nitro-cellulose is washed thoroughly with
water and some soda to remove the acid, leaving the nitrogen in the
cotton, and then the water is taken out. The water is displaced with
alcohol and the nitrocellulose is then called pyroxylin, or soluble
cotton. It is shipped in the wet state, containing about 30% of alcohol
by weight. The alcohol materially reduces the fire hazard. Pyroxylin is
the raw material from which the lacquer manufacturer makes his
product. It is also called collodion and is used in surgery for coating
wounds.
Nitro-cellulose which contains a great amount of nitrogen, up to
13.5%, is the base of smokeless powder. That which contains more
nitrogen is the base for making gun-cotton explosives. The nitrocellulose
used for lacquers, that which makes pyroxylin, is nitrated to
an intermediate degree, from 11.8% to 12.5% of nitrogen, and as long
as it is kept wet with alcohol there is little or no risk of fire or
explosion.
Pyroxylin used as the base for lacquers looks very much like ordinary
cotton. It is white, rather solid and the fibres are more brittle. To make
lacquer this pyroxylin is dissolved in solvent liquids like ethyl, butyl
and amyl acetates, acetone and methyl alcohol. These solvents are, of
course, very volatile. Combinations of denatured alcohol and camphor
and of alcohol and ether are also used as solvents of pyroxylin. Alone
these substances are not solvents, but in the combinations they are.
Then other thinners are added which are volatile but are not solvents
of the pyroxylin. They are used simply to make the lacquer more fluid
so it can be sprayed on to a surface more easily, or so it will distribute
itself better when articles of merchandise are dipped into it. The
volatile, non-solvent liquids used in lacquers to make them more fluid,
help control the rate of drying and to help decrease the cost are:
denatured alcohol, butyl alcohol, fusel oil, benzol, toluol and xylol.
Pyroxylin dissolved in the solvents mentioned and diluted with the
non-solvent volatile liquids makes an exceedingly tough and
transparent coating, but one which is too brittle and which does not
adhere as firmly as is desired to under coats. Therefore to that
solution is added what are called plasticisers, or softeners, which
remain in the lacquer when dry and increase the elasticity. Castor oil,
rape oil, camphor and a group of liquids called esters are used as
plasticisers. In order to increase adhesion and the gloss of the lacquer,
gum resins, such as are used in making oleo-resinous varnishes of the
old type, are added to the solution.
Lacquers made of the materials so far mentioned are very transparent
and very light in color, as well as exceedingly tough and resistant to
wear of all kinds. In order to make lacquer enamels, color pigments
and also opaque pigments are added to the clear lacquer.
The drying of lacquers requires from ten minutes to an hour,
depending upon the composition which is within the control of the
manufacturers. It dries by the evaporation of the solvent and nonsolvent
volatile liquids until nothing is left on the surface except the
cellulose in the hard, solid form, plus the plasticisers and the gums
incorporated.
The application of lacquers is made by use of the spray gun and by
dipping. Lacquers which can be applied with the brush have also
appeared on the market for use on a great many kinds of surfaces,
particularly household articles like furniture, etc. It is offered for use
also on floors and general wood trim and will dry hard enough to walk
on in half an hour.
The cellulose lacquers made years ago were little used except upon
metals as a bronzing liquid with metal bronzes and as a very thin,
transparent coating over polished metals, brass, copper, bronze, etc.
They were used largely for the same purposes as the shellac and
varnish lacquers.
In modern manufacture of merchandise and in the arts and crafts the
clear lacquers and lacquer enamels in innumerable colors are used on
merchandise and decorations very extensively. The thin, light colored
and tough transparent lacquers find great usefulness in coating metals
such as silverware, electric light fixtures, building hardware, all
manner of metal spinning and stamping products like art and novelty
pieces and jewelry. The clear lacquers are used both as bronzing
liquids with which bronzes are mixed and as coatings for bronzecoated
surfaces and enameled surfaces. The furniture industry
employs both the clear and colored lacquers extensively and more and
more each year. The colored lacquers^ enamels, are also very widely
used on automobiles, machinery of many kinds^ electric light fixtures,
furniture, fixtures, toys and novelties.
The use of lacquers, in short, is growing very rapidly to include not
alone the automobile industry, but also railway equipment, furniture of
every kind and the house building industry. In the development of any
product which promises so much in durability and general service
there are bound to be some set-backs, due to too much speed and
inexperience in the making and the application of lacquer, but the
great research work being done, combined with the experience which
craftsmen are getting in the application of lacquer, is bound to
overcome the difficulties which cause the low percentage of failures
which is evident.

We have received quite a number of clients asking if there are other payment options that we offer.