What is Lake?

[apl31]

I am making a model of a Furness Railway carriage from a Metropolitan Carriage Co drawing of 1864. The drawing states the lower panels are painted “Lake”. But what exactly is Lake?

 

Some research pulled up two online books referring to carriage painting (horse drawn). One was a 1880s decorating book with a chapter on carriage painting. The other was a specific carriage painting book from 1903   Practical_Carriage_and_Wagon_Painting_After skimming through these books, I am none the wiser as to what “Lake” is, colour or composition, however I picked out some information:

 

1. “ All colours designated as lakes are used only as glazing colours to enrich the ground or solid colours they are placed”  My interpretation of that is  that Lake was a varnish type material not a solid colour. I always thought Lake is a strange word to describe reds and browns (and yellow apparently), perhaps it is derived from French laque meaning laquer.

 

2. There was a description of how to achieve the various coloured lakes using different base colours which may be of interest (see attached screenshot).

 

 

3. If I understood correctly during 1870s artificial lakes were produced from aniline and whiting, suggesting that my 1864 lake would be made from natural ingredients.

 

Going back to my 1864 drawing is it possible that when Metropolitan Co stated “Lake” it was a specific standard shade they supplied (a bit like Henry Ford’s Black) and not a customer specified   colour? Has anybody come across this designation on other Metropolitan drawings. Im thinking of small companies here, not MR or LNWR who I would assume would make their own anyway. I did contact Birmingham  library some years ago asking whether any Metropolitan paint formulations existed. They did a brief search but found nothing.

Edited June 21 by apl31

[Miss Prism]

I have never associated the term 'lake' with a specific colour. For me, 'lake' is an effect given by layers of varnish (over a coloured base), with those layers of varnish possibly tinted.

 

[brossard]

From my reading (Jenkinson primarily), I always got the impression that lake was an undercoat and similar to red oxide primer.  When painting LMS stock, I used red oxide as an undercoat followed by crimson lake top coat.  (Undercoat is important.  I once stupidly used grey primer as an undercoat for crimson lake and got purple.)

 

I also note that during the war, as an austerity measure, some LMS NPCS vehicles were finished in lake, not crimson lake as they would have been in happier times.

 

Carter in his book on liveries doesn't have a lot to say about the Furness, with no info on carriages for 1864.  Later on, towards the end of the century, he mentions that carriages were "blue".  A paint sample, in the book, looks to me to be a very dark greeny blue.

 

John

 

[apl31]

Thanks for the replies.

 

John - the Furness Blue and White livery was introduced around 1897. It was brown before that. This early Lake and White is a mystery. It is mentioned on this carriage drawing and there is one  photo showing this coach c1870 in a two colour livery presumably in Lake and White. 

I am a member of Cumbrian Railway Association and there's nothing else recorded. I suppose I can paint it any Lake I like nobody is likely to know any different. I was wondering if there was any other lines of enquiry.  

Edited June 20 by apl31

[brossard]

4 minutes ago, apl31 said:

Thanks for the replies.

John - the Furness Blue and White livery was introduced around 1897. It was brown before that. This earlt Lake and white is a mystery 

 

Sounds like you have the book.

 

John

[Harlequin]

There's a wonderful article in Railway Archive No.5 entitled "Painting Victorian Trains" by Dr. Anthony J East Ph.D who was a paint chemist by profession.

 

He explains exactly what a Lake is and that Crimson Lake was translucent and so had to be bulked up and painted on specific base colours.

 

I'll extract some quotes after work.

 

[Harlequin]

Extracts from Dr. East's article (transcribed automatically by Google Lens and a few corrections by me):

 

Quote

Organic pigments can be either fully synthetic or derived from natural dyes. They are in turn divided into two subclasses - metallic lakes and true pigments. A lake is a chemical complex formed between a dye (which is a water-soluble colouring material) and a metal salt. Together they react to form an insoluble, stable chemical complex, which is used as the pigment. This, by the way, is the principle behind mordant dyeing. If you want to dye a cotton fabric Turkey Red, you soak the fabric in potash alum solution and dry it off, then soak it in a solution of madder dye. The dye forms a coloured insoluble complex inside the cotton fibres, which, being trapped, cannot be washed out. Lakes are the same idea. Aluminium, calcium, barium and zinc salts are often used to form lakes from dyes. The North Staffordshire Railway used finest cochineal scarlet to make its Madder Lake locomotive livery. So did the L&NWR for the dark lake on the lower panels of its coaches. Cochineal is a water-soluble natural red dye extracted from the crushed bodies of a Mexican beetle (no less) and the active stuff is called carminic acid. This reacts with aluminium or zinc salts to give a very beautiful (and expensive) crimson pigment. Often the lake is a different hue to the dye from which it is derived. Blue dye will not give a yellow lake - quite the contrary; in general, lakes are darker and more violet than the dye itself (what the colour chemist calls a bathochromic shift). Hence a scarlet dye gives a crimson lake and a red dye may give a purple lake.

 

Quote

With aluminium, alizarin gives the insoluble lake called crimson lake, a beautiful deep red pigment (remember what I said about lakes being deeper and bluer than their dyes). In the old days, the madder plant was widely grown in plantations, and the harvesting and extraction of the dye was naturally labour intensive, which made the dye very expensive. In the 1870s, the German chemists Liebermann and Graebe discovered how to make alizarin from anthracene, isolated from the distillation of coal tar. The synthesis was relatively simple and cheap synthetic alizarin drove the natural dye off the market in a very short time. Thus, when Samuel W. Johnson introduced his famous crimson lake livery on the Midland Railway, it was at a time when synthetic crimson lake was becoming nicely available in quantity at a reasonable price. As crimson lake is transparent, various extenders (e.g. blanc fixe) were added as opacifiers and the crimson was applied as a top coating over various purple brown (iron oxide) undercoats, before the final varnishing. Many of the perennial arguments over LMS crimson and Midland Lake not being the same colour may well be due to differences in the undercoat. Likewise the dark Lake (sometimes called 'chocolate lake') of the L&NWR coaches was a cochineal carmine/ aluminium lake over an Indian Red undercoat - a mixture of iron oxide red and black. The top coat of Lake being transparent, it allowed the undercoat to show through.

 

I think I have read elsewhere that Lakes are often "transparent", as Dr. East puts it, and that is why your article, @apl31, is talking about "glazing" them over different coloured "grounds". And it is why Lakes had more depth to them than simple pigment paints and were thus so admired for loco and rolling stock liveries. Of course, it also makes Lake liveries very difficult to reproduce these days without knowing the exact build-up.

 

I'll see if the article says anything specific about the Metropolitan or Furness railways. Can't see anything, sorry.

 

Edited June 20 by Harlequin

[Jeremy Cumberland]

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has three definitions for "lake", which overlap in meaning to some extent and also overlap in dates.

 

The word "lake" clearly derives from the Middle English word "lac" (a 1597 quote uses both words), but this is only of moderate help since both words changed their meanings over time. The earliest definition of "lac" is:

A dark red resinous substance produced as a protective coating by certain scale insects, esp. Kerria lacca

 

However, by the time "lake" appeared in print, another definition of "lac" was being used:

Originally: any of various red paints or pigments made from organic and inorganic materials other than lac. In later use more generally: a pigment of any colour made by combining an organic colouring substance with a metallic oxide, hydroxide, or salt

This "later use" is essentially the same as the third definition of "lake"

 

The entries for "lake" are a little simpler, referring first to the pigment made from insects:

A pigment of a reddish hue, originally obtained from lac (cf. lac n.1 2), and now from cochineal

 

Then to the colour itself, exemplified by a 1660 quote:

"Lake..is an excellent Crimson-colour."

There is an 1882 quote, which would be very useful indeed if only we knew the flower:

"Of new flowers there are..Constancy, yellow, deeply edged with lake." (from Garden 7 October 1882 312/3)

 

Then to the metod of preparation mentioned earlier:

In extended sense: A pigment obtained by the combination of animal, vegetable, or coal-tar colouring matter with some metallic oxide or earth. Often preceded by some qualifying word, as crimson, Florence, green, madder, yellow, etc. lake.

 

Note that none of these definitions make mention of lake's covering properties, but this might simply be because OEDs compilers, not being carriage painters themselves, were ignorant of the fact.

 

Reading through the quotes with their dates, a writer in 1864 referring to "lake" as a colour is almost certainly referring to a slightly bluish red similar to carmine (=obtained from cochineal) or crimson.

[apl31]

Phil and Jeremy,

Thanks you for the information very interesting. Nice to see some science and language on here -  we have  had entomology and etymology. Its useful to look at things from different directions, and see where it takes you.  Apparently Ruskin lived in the lakes and was against the railways, Perhaps there is  an entry in his diary  about "that dreadful Furness Railway polluting the view with their English Rose Lake carriages"  You never know.

Thanks again.

Aidan

[brossard]

Interesting discussion.  However, where does that take us as far as modelling goes and what colour should the modeller use for Lake?  Perhaps the actual colour varied from railway to railway.  I have built pre group NBR 4 and 6 wheeled carriages using red oxide primer as a base and crimson lake as a top colour.

 

John

[melmerby]

I read somewhere that Midland Railway Crimson Lake was arrived at by painting it over "Chocolate" undercoat.

 

[brossard]

24 minutes ago, melmerby said:

I read somewhere that Midland Railway Crimson Lake was arrived at by painting it over "Chocolate" undercoat.

 

 

The shade of chocolate, depending on percentage of cocoa, can be nearly black to light brown.  For me, "chocolate" sounds close enough to red oxide.

 

John

[Harlequin]

1 hour ago, brossard said:

Interesting discussion.  However, where does that take us as far as modelling goes and what colour should the modeller use for Lake?  Perhaps the actual colour varied from railway to railway.  I have built pre group NBR 4 and 6 wheeled carriages using red oxide primer as a base and crimson lake as a top colour.

 

John

Unfortunately, just specifying a colour as "Lake" doesn't give enough information on its own. We need more context.

 

Are there are any other documents from the "Metropolitan Carriage Co." that might give a clue? Maybe there's a description of the colour of the Furness carriages in one of the railway magazines of the time?

 

Failing that, the safest assumption would be that it's one of the common, naturally derived Lakes applied in the simplest way. Either Madder Lake if you're on a budget, or Carmine Lake if you can afford it, painted onto a cheap ground of a very similar colour to best accentuate the lake colour - i.e. Red oxide / "Indian Red".

 

Edited June 21 by Harlequin

[Deeps]

 Useful information here for a subject that has long confused me.

 

(If you will excuse a slight departure from the core subject, the opportunity for a drop of humour being too much to resist, I always thought lake was a large body of water. Of course, for Scottish modellers it would be a loch!)

[apl31]

On 21/06/2024 at 14:27, Harlequin said:

Are there are any other documents from the "Metropolitan Carriage Co." that might give a clue?

Yes this goes back to one of my original questions, making the big assumption that "Lake" was a  company  reference to their standard colour/finish, was it supplied to other small railway companies? is there any information, formulations etc. relating to these companies then  ( c1860's) or coming forward? ie a Metropolitan customer who may have retained an early lake livery and/or with better early documentation.

I dont expect there is much unfound Furness-specific  information, the Cumbrian Railway Association has been going nearly 50 years  and despite much excellent research, the question of early livery remains a mystery -apart from this "Lake" reference 

 

Edited June 24 by apl31

[Caley Jim]

Mike Williams' book on Caledonian Carriages, has a short piece on 'Lake'.  Here it repeats much of what has already been said in that 'Lake' is more a finish rather than a colour of itself. He does, however refer to an 1890 Engineering article and a CR Loco & Stores Committee minute which, under 'Carriage Lakes' refers to the supply of 'crimson lake required for the painting of carriages '

Mike also points out that 'Crimson lake' and 'purple lake'  are not necessarily contradictory colours as the former could refer to the pigment used on top of a darker undercoat which would give the visual effect described by the latter.

 

The CR coach colour is described as 'purple brown' and I was recommended to apply it over a black undercoat as this gives a richer colour.

 

Jim

[melmerby]

9 hours ago, brossard said:

 

The shade of chocolate, depending on percentage of cocoa, can be nearly black to light brown.  For me, "chocolate" sounds close enough to red oxide.

 

John

But by no stretch of the imagination could it be called "Red", which red oxide quite clearly is.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

This post includes a Midland Railway paint specification from 1891, giving the base as "lead oxide or colour":

 

Lead oxide is red lead. I have found it remarkably hard to discover what colour this actually was (even though the paint is still made and is used on wooden boats for painting below the waterline). The lead oxide pigment minium is a bright orange-red. Discussion on model boat forums suggests that red lead used had a pinkish hue, but I have read elsewhere of a browner shade closer to red oxide, sometimes with a suggestion that the name "red oxide" is itself a reference to lead oxide rather than iron(III) oxide. In the past I had wondered whether the orange-pink colour of surviving Dinorwic slate wagons is meant to resemble red lead, and that this was the paint used by the quarry company, but I have not found anything to support this.

 

I don't know what "or colour" means in the Midland specification. Some other paint with a similar colour, perhaps, but this is a guess.

[Mikkel]

As recently mentioned elsewhere, the August 1914 issue of the GWR Magazine (written by a Swindon staff member) has this description of how the GWR Lake of that period was applied. The quote distinguishes between "red lead" and "lead colour", and between "ground colour", "lake" and "varnish lake".  

 

"Coaches, on leaving the Body Shop, are passed to the  Paint  Shop.  In  the  case  of the  new fireproof coaches, the whole of the exterior of the galvanised steel sheet,  previously to  being fixed,  is  especially dressed,  whilst  the  underside  is  painted  with  red lead.  Progressive coats of paint, etc., are applied as follows: — Red lead,  filling, then stained and rubbed, lead  colour,  ground  colour,  lake,  varnish  lake."

 

[Harlequin]

In his book, "The Liveries of the Pre-Grouping Railways, Volume 1", Nigel Digby says:

 

Quote

Chocolate was a term used indiscriminately by contemporary observers to describe reds and red-browns which to modern eyes bear no resemblance to the eponymous substance.

 

[chuffinghell]

The pigment in the resin I used for my canal was ‘**** brown’

 

 

🤣

[billbedford]

A full description of the sequence of painting LMS coaches, complete with paint specifications, is in Jenkinson and Essery's LMS Standard Coaching Stock Vol 1. 

 

For what it's worth, the coats in sequence were:

 

Lead colour undercoat. - Protective white paint paste with black in oil, drier, white spirit and linseed oil. 

Brown Undercoat - Oxide of Iron, in oil, type R red shade with liquid drier, Mixing varnish and genuine turpentine.

Undercoat for Lake - brown undercoat with additional black. 

Standard LMS Crimson Lake - standard LMS lake (paste form) mixing varnish, genuine turpentine liquid drier. 

Lake Glaze - made up 3:1 with standard lake and finishing varnish. 

 

 

[apl31]

Thanks to everyone who contributed. I don’t think I will find the definite answer regarding my specific “Lake” colour question, unless there are formulations somewhere in Metropolitan Carriage records, but all replies have given useful information.

 

I get impression that the background colour has more influence on perceived colour, than the colour of the translucent Lake covering it. However, I found some more information on natural Lakes before introduction of the synthetic Lakes c 1870s. There is an online copy of exhibiters at the 1851 Exhibition, there is some interesting information:

 

 

Referring to Godrey and Crooke (above) they sell “Lake from Cochineal ….. “  and some information on the process.  As an aside in the opposite column Blundel & Spence  supply Lakes but also highlight that they supply Brunswick Green Paint, a shade used by NER and others.

 

 

 

 

On another page above Tulloh, is a continuation of John Marshalls of Leeds products (start on the opposite column) is a mention of “Lac-Dye”.

 

 These Lac-Dyes appear to be obtained from a secretion of Stick Lac insects on bushes in India ( Lac meaning thousands ie thousands of insects). With processing the resin can be separated into a water-soluble red dye and the resinous shellac for varnish. The origins of Lac goes back millennia and there are online references to the word evolving into Lake.

 

Marshalls mention Lac Dye is used extensively as a substitute for cochineal. Presumably this means it was less expensive than cochineal.

So in 1851 there are references to both Lake and Lac. Lake may have been name for the expensive cochineal-based product and Lac a cheaper product.  If that were the case would railway carriages be painted in an expensive or cheaper finish?  In the 1860’s the Furness was essentially a mineral carrier and not particularly interested in passengers, so if there were a choice perhaps, they would choose cheaper option.  One other possible difference is that John Marshall may have been a large manufacturer of cloth. Perhaps Lac dyes were for cloth and Lakes were used on wood?

Edited June 24 by apl31