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Intent Farm, near
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,
makes primitive
reproduction furniture
using reclaimed
Pennsylvania barn wood
and achitectural details.
Bob Barbour and Andy
Grimes apply Milk Paints
in multi-layered,
authentic period colors
and hand finish with
pigmented beeswax for a
unique, heavily
distressed look. |
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FEW FACTS THAT YOU SHOULD BE
AWARE OF |
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| 1} |
For over 30
years, The Old-Fashioned
Milk Paint Company has
been faithfully producing
a genuine Milk Paint as
close as possible to the
old primitive, home-made
paint made on the back
porch with skim milk or
buttermilk, crushed
limestone and pigments
found around clay pits,
or chimney soot and
mineral colors crushed
and powdered. This
original paint goes back
about 6000 and more years
as evidence by early cave
paintings. |
| 2} |
This
original paint varied
quite a bit in color,
texture and permanence as
no recipe was widely
disseminated world wide.
Slight variations in the
results were quite usual,
as evidenced by artifacts
found with (a) a fairly
heavy film thickness in
spite of great age, or,
(b) just a thin stain of
earth pigment color that
penetrated the wood
pottery. |
| 3} |
During our
early experiments, we
easily reproduced the
latter (b) results
although we were working
to get a good film with
strong adhesion as
mentioned in (a) above.
These experiments
resulted in our being
able to produce a genuine
milk paint as made long
ago, with one variation.
We found that when using
regular liquid milk, the
paint would start to gel
in a matter of hours.
Keeping it in the
refrigerator would
increase the life of the
liquid paint, but not for
more than a few days. |
| 4} |
This was all
right for our own use but
we were already receiving
requests from some of our
customers who had
purchased a four-poster
bed or a Windsor chair
that we had made and
painted, and wanted some
of our unusual paint. Our
main business was the
making of museum replicas
of the 17th & 18th
century furniture, and
some of the original
country pieces had been
milk-painted. |
| 5} |
Naturally,
for authenticity, we had
to stick with the
original ingredients. We
were able to make one
concession in order to
ship our paint anywhere.
We used all dry
ingredients, still
faithful to the history
and "that's the end
of the story". |
| 6} |
Genuine milk
paint is technically a
calcium-caseinate. That
means simply that it is
made from milk protein,
(also known as casein)
and lime, (also known as
calcium), plus the earth
or mineral pigments.
There are casein paints
of many varieties as well
as casein glues and
adhesive coatings. About
a hundred years ago in
Germany a casein paint
was made using
formaldehyde instead of
lime. Another formula
used borax instead of
lime. Still another used
additives like synthetic
plastics such as
acrylics, vinyls or
acetates, and the list
goes on and on. Many of
these formulations are
good paints, as are oil
and latex. But they are
NOT milk paints. |
Since 1974 Often Copied -
Never Equaled
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