Important: Safety Warning
This page describes trade processes that use dangerously toxic materials such as cyanide solutions, mercury amalgams, or strong acids. These processes require training, equipment, and precautions far beyond what the text describes.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Home › Gilding, Silvering, Etc › To Repair a Damaged Mirror
To Repair a Damaged Mirror
Pour upon a sheet of tin foil about 3 drachms of quicksilver to the square foot of foil. Rub smartly with a piece of buckskin until the foil becomes brilliant. Lay the glass upon a flat becomes of a brilliant tint; after that it is plunged in a bath composed of a mixture of the two liquors, Nos. 1 and 2. (See No. 3626.) When it is completely silvered, it is withdrawn and boiled in a solution of salt of tartar (carbonate of potassa) in water, and there remains nothing more to be done but a last washing and drying. 3628. To Silver Bone, Horn, Paper, Etc. Bone, horn, wood, paper, etc., are silvered in the same way (see No. 3627) with this difference, however, that, in the place of the alternate immersions above indicated, the objects to be silvered are operated upon with a brush or pencil dipped alternately in the gallic acid solution and in that of nitrate of silver. The silvered surfaces are then washed with distilled water, dried by free air and heat.