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.
In addition, this page directs the use of hazardous substances — such as benzine, gasoline, lye, or strong acids — for household tasks. These materials are highly flammable, corrosive, or poisonous, and the practices described have caused fires, burns, and poisonings.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Blacking
ochre; grind them separately in water, turpentine, or oil, according to the work, and mix them in such proportions as will produce the color desired; then grind Dutch metal in a part of this composition, laying it with judgment on the prominent parts of the figure, which produces a grand effect.
To Polish Varnished Furniture.
Take 2 oz. of tripoli powdered, put it in an earthen pot with water to cover it; then take a piece of white flannel, lay it over a piece of cork or rubber, and proceed to polish the varnish, always wetting it with the tripoli and water. It will be known when the process is finished by wiping a part of the work with a sponge, and observing whether there is a fair even gloss. When this is the case, take a bit of mutton suet and fine flour and clean the work.
To Polish Wood.
Take a piece of pumice-stone and water, and pass regularly over the work until the rising of the grain is cut down; then take powdered tripoli and boiled linseed-oil, and polish the work to a bright surface.
To Polish Brass Ornaments inlaid in Wood.
File the brass very clean with a smooth file; then take some tripoli powdered very fine, and mix it with the linseed oil. Dip in this a rubber of felt, with which polish the work until the desired effect is obtained. If the work is ebony, or black rosewood, take some elder coal powdered very fine, and apply it dry after you have done with the tripoli, and it will produce a superior polish.
The French mode of ornamenting with brass differs widely from ours; theirs being chiefly water-gilt (or-moulu), excepting the flutes of columns, etc., which are polished very high with rotten-stone, and finished with elder coal.
To Brown Iron and Steel Objects.
Dissolve 2 parts of crystallized chloride of iron, 2 parts of solid chloride of antimony, and 1 part of gallic acid in 4 or 5 parts of water. With this moisten a piece of sponge or cloth and apply to the object, a gun-barrel for instance. Let it dry in the air, and repeat the operation several times; then wash with water; dry, and rub with boiled linseed-oil. Objects browned in this way have a very agreeable dead gray appearance, and the shade deepens according to the number of times the operation is repeated.
To make Blacking.
Take of ivory black and treacle, each 12 oz.; spermaceti oil, 4 oz., white wine vinegar, 4pts. Mix. To make Liquid Blacking.
Take of vinegar, No. 18 (the common), 1 qt.; ivory-black and treacle, each 6 oz.; vitriolic acid and spermaceti (or common oil), each 1½ oz.
Mix the acid and oil first, afterwards add the other ingredients; if, when it is used, it does not dry quickly enough on the leather, add a little more of the vitriol, a little at a time, till it dries quickly enough. When there is too much of the vitriolic acid, which is various in its strength, the mixture will give it a brown color.
Vinegar is sold by numbers, viz., No. 18 (the weakest), 19, 20, 21, 22. The celebrated blacking is made with No. 18. When this mixture is properly finished, the ivory-black will be about onethird the contents of the bottle. To make Bailey's Composition for Blacking-cakes.
Take gum tragacanth, 1 oz.; neat's-foot oil, superfine ivory-black, deep blue, prepared from iron and copper, each 2 oz.; brown sugar candy, river-water, each 4 oz. Having mixed well these ingredients, evaporate the water, and form your cakes.
To make Blacking Balls for Shoes.
Take mutton suet, 4 oz.; bees-wax, 1 oz.; sweet oil, 1 oz.; sugar candy and gum Arabic, 1 dr. each, in fine powder; melt these well together over a gentle fire, and add thereto about a spoonful of turpentine, and lampblack sufficient to give it a good black color. While hot enough to run, make it into a ball by pouring the liquor into a tin mould; or let it stand till almost cold; or it may be moulded by the hand.
To make Liquid Japan Blacking.
Take 3 oz. of ivory-black, 2 oz. of coarse sugar, 1 oz. of sulphuric acid, 1 oz. of muriatic acid, 1 tablespoonful of sweet oil and lemon acid, and 1 pt. of vinegar. First mix the ivory-black and sweet oil together, then the lemon and sugar, with a little vinegar to qualify the blacking; then add the sulphuric and muriatic acids, and mix them all well together.