Pink treatment / primer 50’s building timber

[Torx]

I’ve been working on the woodwork around the house, and after stripping off the paint there is a pink-ish tinge to the timber. I’m curious whether it’s a treatment similar to modern pressure treated green / blue stuff? Or is it the primer used?

It’s a shame to paint over some of it again, the newel posts look like pitch pine to me, but have been nailed together roughly and have decades of abuse so unfortunately bits getting another coat of paint

I don’t feel too bad as it isn’t consistently nice stuff, but still a lot better than building yard best stuff today.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The timber was probably bought pre primed. My father was a builder and I remember in the early '60s seeing all the skirtings, door linings etc. come in pink. I would think they were sprayed or possibly dipped, and saved a lot of labour.

 

[Nigel Burden]

I think it's like Phil said. When we refurbished our daughters flat, built in the 1970s, we removed the curtain batons, stripping the paint back revealed a pink primer.

Nigel.

 

[toolsntat]

When I first started in the joinery shop in 1980 I remember priming hundreds of lengths of whatever with PALACE pink primer. All the exterior stuff was immersed in a tank full of Sovereign preservative first, a horrible smelly job especially when I accidentally got it on my clothes....
Cheers Andy

 

[Doug71]

Pink primer was everywhere when I first started out, I could never understand why pink, I imagined it was white primer with a bit of red lead primer mixed in to make it stick better, that was my theory anyway, probably totally wrong.

I have an old second hand Wadkin spindle moulder which has pink paint splashes all up one side, I imagine in it's previous life it was near the priming area in a workshop.