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 Make Black Japan Varnish

Melt together 50 pounds Naples asphaltum and 8 pounds dark gam anime, and boil for 2 hours in 12 gallons linseed oil; then melt 10 pounds dark gum amber, and boil it with 2 the filling has to be coated with two or more gallons linseed oil; add this to the other, with coats of the best polishing copal varnish, hav- a sufficient quantity of dryers, and boil for 2 ing a quantity of the best tube flake white; hours longer, or until a little of the mass, this should be mixed with the varnish in suffi- when cooled, may be rolled into pills; then cient quantity to form a creamy mixture, withdraw the heat, and afterwards thin down with which the work must be coated-one, with 30 gallons oil of turpentine. This is ex two, or three coats, as may be desirable. This cellent for either wood or metals. should stand for 3 or 4 weeks, until it becomes 3023. Flexible Black Japan Varnish. hard; for the harder it is the better it will pol- A good black japan is made of burnt umber, ish.

It must then be cut down with felt and 4 ounces; true asphaltum, 2 ounces; and the finest ground pumice stone in water, and polished with the rotten stone, as before described. By this means a bright and brilliant polish may be obtained, of a very enduring nature. The same process will of course answer for all varnished imitations of woods and marbles, and all work which will admit of the application of oil varnishes. boiled oil, 2 quarts. Dissolve the asphaltum at first in a little oil, using a moderate heat; then add the umber, ground in oil, and lastly, the rest of the oil, and incorporate thoroughly.

Thin with turpentine. It is a flexible japan, and may be used on metal work which require; to be bent somewhat.

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