Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes

How to silver a mirror, brew ginger beer, kill moths, make fireworks, tan a hide, bronze iron, cure a ham and clean a straw hat: William B. Dick's numbered encyclopedia answered the questions a nineteenth-century household actually had.

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Plating on Iron or Steel

Take 2 quarts rain water, dissolve 2 pounds cyanide receiving the silver deposit, and its solution, of potassium, and filter. In order to plate being specifically lighter than the general steel or iron, dip it into pure sulphuric acid mass of the plating solution, rises to the top; for one minute, then clean with pumice stone, this causes a current to take place along the and brush; rinse, and hang in solution of face of the article being plated. If the article cyanide of potassium for three minutes, or has a flat surface, suppose that of a waiter or until it becomes white; then hang in silver solution until plated heavy enough. (See No. 3698.) 3716. Taking Silver from Copper, Etc. First by stripping or dissolving it off; this is done by putting into a stoneware or copper pan some strong sulphuric acid (vitriol), to which a little nitrate of potassa is added; the article is laid into this solution, which will dissolve the silver without materitray, upon which a prominence exists, as a mounting round the edge, it will cause lines and ridges from the bottom to the top.

Newly formed solutions are most subject to produce this annoyance.

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