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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To Clean and Polish Frames

When the prepared frames are quite dry, clean and polish them. To do this, wet a small piece at a time, and, with a smooth, fine piece of cloth, dipped in water, rub the part till all the inequalities are removed, and for those parts where the fingers will not enter, as the mouldings, &c., wind the wet cloth round a piece of wood, and by this means make the surface all equally smooth and even. Where there is carved work, &c., it will sometimes be necessary to bring the Gilding, Silvering, &c. mouldings to their original sharpness by In this department we give processes for gilding and silvering wood, metals, paper, and glass; together with a number of receipts for coating various metals with other metallic deposits. 3557. Implements for Gilding on Wood. A sufficient quantity of leaf-gold, which is of two sorts-deep gold, and pale, or lemon gold. The former is the best; the latter very useful, and may occasionally be introduced for variety or effect. A gilder's cushion; an oblong piece of wood, covered with rough calf-skin, stuffed with flannel several times doubled, with a border of parchment, about 4 inches deep at one end, to prevent the air blowing the leaves about when placed on the cushion.

A gilding knife, with a straight and very smooth edge, sharp enough to cut the gold, but not sufficiently so to cut the cushion. It must be perfectly clean, or the gold leaf will adhere to it.

Several camel's-hair pencils of assorted sizes; and tips, made of a few long camel's hairs put between two cards, in the same manner as hairs are put into tin cases for brushes, thus means of chisels, gouges, &c., as the preparation will be apt to fill up all the finer parts of the work, which must be thus restored. It is sometimes the practice, after polishing, to go over the work once with fine yellow or Roman ochre. 3562. Το Make Gold Size for Frames.

Grind fine sal-ammoniac well with a muller and stone; scrape into it a little beef-suet, and grind all well together; after which mix in with a pallet knife a small proportion of parchment size with a double proportion of water.

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