Frontier Fridays: How to Make Your Own Oil Cloth

How to Make an Oil Cloth

To procure an oil cloth as cheaply as possible, buy cheap tow cloth and fit it to the size and shape of the kitchen. Then have it stretched and nailed to the south side of the barn, and with a brush, cover it with a coat of thin white paste. When this is dry, put on a coat of yellow paint and let it dry for a fortnight. It is safest to first try the paint and see if it dries well, as some paints will never dry. Then put on a second coat, and at the end of another fortnight, a third coat. Then let it hang two weeks, and it will last, uninjured for many years. The longer the paint is left to dry the better. If varnished it will last much longer.