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Observation

The sugar, oil, and vinegar prevent the acids from injuring the leather, and add to the lustre of the blacking.

A Cheap Method.

Ivory-black, 2 oz.; brown sugar, 1½ oz.; and sweet oil, tablespoonful, Mix them well, and then gradually add pt. of small beer.

Another Method.

A quarter lb. of ivory-black, lb. of moist sugar, a tablespoonful of flour, a piece of tallow about the size of a walnut, and a small piece of gum Arabic.

Make a paste of the flour, and while hot put in the tallow, then the sugar, and afterwards mix the whole well together in a quart of water.

India Rubber Blacking (Patent.) Ivory-black, 60 lbs.; treacle, 45 lbs.; vinegar (No. 24), 20 galls.; powdered gum, 1 lb.; Indiarubber oil, 9 lbs. (The latter is made by dissolving by heat 18 oz. of India rubber in 9 lbs. of rapeoil.) Grind the whole smooth in a paint-mill, then add by small quantities at a time 12 lbs. of oil of vitriol, stirring it strongly for an hour a day for a fortnight.

To render Leather Water-proof.

This is done by rubbing or brushing into the leather a mixture of drying oils, and any of the oxides of lead, copper, or iron; or by substituting any of the gummy resins in the room of the metallic oxides. To make Varnish for Colored Drawings.

Take of Canada balsam, 1 oz.; spirit of turpentine, 2 oz. Mix them together. Before this composition is applied, the drawing or print should be sized with a solution of isinglass in water; and when dry apply the varnish with a camel's-hair brush.

To make Furniture Paste.

Scrape 4 oz. of bees'-wax into a basin, and add as much oil of turpentine as will moisten it through. Now powder a oz. of resin, and add as much Indian red as will bring it to a deep mahogany color. When the composition is properly stirred up, it will prove an excellent cement or paste for blemishes in mahogany and other furniture.

Another Method.

Scrape 4 oz. of beeswax as before. To a pint of oil of turpentine, in a glazed pipkin, add an ounce of alkanet-root. Cover it close and put it over a slow fire, attending it carefully that it may not boil over, or catch fire. When the liquid is of a deep red, add as much of it to the wax as will | oil, brush over the inner edges of the shoes with moisten it through, also a quarter of an ounce of powdered resin. Cover the whole close, and let it stand 6 hours, when it will be fit for use.

To make Furniture Oil.

Take linseed-oil, put it into a glazed pipkin with as much alkanet-root as it will cover. Let it boil gently, and it will become of a strong red color; when cool it will be fit for use.

To make Wash for Preserving Drawings made with a Black Lead Pencil.

A thin wash of isinglass will fix either black lead, or hard black chalk, so as to prevent their rubbing out; or the same effect may be produced by the simple application of skimmed milk, as has been proved by frequent trials. The best way of using the latter is to lay the drawing flat upon the surface of the milk; and then taking it up by one corner till it drains and dries. The milk must be perfectly free from cream, or it will grease the paper.

To make Varnish for Wood, which Resists the Action of Boiling Water.

Take 1½ lbs. of linseed-oil, and boil it in a red copper vessel, not tinned, holding suspended over it, in a small linen bag, 5 oz. of litharge and 3 oz. of pulverized minium; taking care that the bag does not touch the bottom of the vessel.

Continue the ebullition until the oil acquires a deep brown color, then take away the bag and substitute another in its place, containing a clove of garlic; continue the ebullition and renew the clove of garlic 7 or 8 times, or rather put them all in at once.

Then throw into the vessel 1 lb. of yellow amber, after having melted it in the following manner: Add to the pound of amber, well pulverized, 2 oz. of linseed oil, and place the whole on a strong fire. When the fusion is complete, pour it boiling into the prepared linseed-oil, and continue to leave it boiling for 2 or 3 minutes, stirring the whole up well. It is then left to settle; the composition is decanted and preserved, when it becomes cold, in well-corked bottles. After polishing the wood on which this varnish is to be applied, you give to the wood the color required; for instance, for walnut-wood, a slight coat of a mixture of soot with the essence of turpentine. When this color is perfectly dry, give it a coat of varnish with a fine sponge. In order to spread it very equally, repeat these coats four times, taking care always to let the preceding coat be dried.

To Restore the Blackness of old Leather Chairs, etc. Many families, especially in the country, possess chairs, settees, etc. covered with black leather. These, impaired by long use, may be restored nearly to their original good color and gloss by the following easy and approved process:

Take yolks of 2 newly-laid eggs and the white of one. Let these be well beaten up, and then shaken in a glass vessel or jug, to become like thick oil; dissolve in about a tablespoonful or less of geneva, an ordinary tea-lump of loaf-sugar; make this thick with ivory black, well worked up with a bit of stick; mix with the egg for use. Let this be laid on as blacking ordinarily is for shoes; after a very few minutes, polish with a soft, very clean brush, till completely dry and shining, then let it remain a day to harden.

The same process answers admirably for ladies' or gentlemen's dress-shoes, but with the follow ing addition for protecting the stockings from soil. Let the white or glair of eggs be shaken in a large glass phial until it becomes a perfect it, and when completely dry, it will prevent all soiling from the leather. This requires to be re peated.

Transparent Ivory.

The process for making ivory transparent and flexible is simply immersion in liquid phosphoric acid, and the change which it undergoes is owing to a partial neutralization of the basic phosphate of lime, of which it principally consists. The ivory is cut in pieces not thicker than the twentieth part of an inch, and placed in phosphoric acid of a specific gravity of 1.131, until it has become transparent, when it is taken from the bath, washed in water, and dried with a clean linen cloth. It becomes dry in the air without the application of heat, and softens again under warm water.

Bleaching of Ivory.

Ivory knife-handles which have become quite yellow from use, being left for from 2 to 4 hours in a watery solution of sulphurous acid, become quite white again. The acid in the gaseous form makes the ivory crack.

To Varnish Drawings and Card Work.

Boil some clear parchment cuttings in water, in a glazed pipkin, till they produce a very clear size. Strain it and keep it for use.

Give the work 2 coats of the size, passing the brush quickly over the work, not to disturb the colors.

To make Turpentine Varnish.

Mix 1 gall. of oil of turpentine and 5 lbs. of powdered resin; put it in a tin can, on a stove, and let it boil for an hour. When cool it is fit for use.

Manufacture of Papier-Maché.

There are at present five principal varieties of papier-maché known in the trade, viz.: 1. Sheets of paper pasted together upon models. 2. Thick sheets or boards produced by pressing ordinary paper pulp between dies. 3. Fibrous slab, which is made of the coarse varieties of fibre only, mixed with some earthy matter, and certain chemical agents introduced for the purpose of rendering the mass incombustible. A cementing size is added, and the whole well kneaded together with the aid of steam. The kneaded mass is passed repeatedly through iron rollers, which squeeze it out to a perfectly uniform thickness. It is then dried at a proper temperature. 4. Carton pierre, which is made of pulp or paper mixed with whiting and glue, pressed into plaster piece-moulds, backed with paper, and, when sufficiently set, hardened by drying in a hot room. 5. Martin's Ceramic Papier-Maché, a new composition, patented in 1858, which consists of paper pulp, resin, glue, drying oil, and sugar of lead, mixed in certain fixed proportions and kneaded together. This composition is extremely plastic, and may be worked, pressed, or moulded into any required form. It may be preserved in this plastic condition for several months by keeping the air away, and occasionally kneading the mass.

The first-mentioned variety of papier-maché alone engages our attention here. A special kind of paper, of a porous texture, is manufactured for this purpose. An iron mould, of somewhat smaller size than the object required, is greased with Russian tallow. A sheet of the paper is laid on to the greased surface of the mould, and covered over with a coat of paste made of the best biscuitflower and glue, which is spread evenly all over the sheet with the hands; another sheet is then laid on, and rubbed down evenly, so that the two