Whitewash -- Paint

[Tom Godley]

Years ago I was able to by an oil based product from Finnaren & Haley paint company that replicated the color and texture of a fine whitewash. F&H is a regional paint company in the Philadelphia area that has worked to replicated most of the historic colors from colonial times.

With the advent of the VOC laws - they no longer make this product. I was thinking of painting the living and dinning room walls in my house. I used the whitewash product in another house almost 20 years ago and really liked the results.

Anybody know of a forum for painting information?

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

If I recall correctly whitewash was mostly white lead micro powder in a dispersant with a touch of glue-like substance. .

[Tom Godley]

This product was not actual whitewash.

It may have just been an oil-based paint with a clay or some other type of thickener in it. It was an off white product with an eggshell like sheen - it made for a very elegant room.

I forget the process but I believe it was just brushed on - not rolled and brushed. When finished you were left with fine brush marks from the top of the wall to the baseboard - or a chair rail in my case. You did not paint over it - you used it as it came from the can

[Neal Clayton]

tom, there's a paint that attempts to emulate old lead style coatings such as the one you describe, they go by the name 'allback paints'. based in sweden if i remember correctly, and they aim their stuff at the historic preservation market.

i don't think they are in any stores in the states, but there are a couple of online dealers that ship from the US.

the lead is replaced with titanium dust, but otherwise they say the composition is similar to old style lead paints, linseed oil borne pigmented metallic dust, that's about it.

i've been meaning to try it but haven't gotten around to it yet. maybe get a quart and tell us what you think?

there has been some experimentation with it that's discussed on historichomeworks.com

[Joe Pelonio]

This thread brings back memories of my childhood. We had an orchard of about 40 trees, mostly pears. One of my duties was to whitewash the trunks. I'd mix up lime and chalk with water, then brush it on the bottom 2-3 feet of each tree. At the time I thought it had something to do with keeping bugs from crawling up, but later found that it reflected the sun which could cause cracking in the bark. It didn't last long, had to be done every year, but indoors I imagine it would do a lot better.