This section is from the book "The English And American Mechanic", by B. Frank Van Cleve. Also available from Amazon: The English And American Mechanic.
Powdered chalk added to common glue strengthens it. A glue which will resist the action of water is made by boiling 1 lb. of glue in 2 qts of skimmed milk.
Melt common glue with the smallest possible Quantity of water; add, by decrees, linseed oil, rendered drying by boiling it with litharge. While the oil is added, the ingredients must be well stirred, to incorporate them thoroughly.
Mix a handful of quick-lime with 4 oz. of linseed oil; thoroughly lixiviate the mixture: boil it to a good thickness, and spread it on tin plates in the shade; it will become very hard, but can be dissolved over a fire, like common glue, and is then fit for use.
Take of best white glue, 16 oz.; white-lead, dry, 4 oz.; rain-water, 2 pts.; alcohol, 4 oz. With constant stirring, dissolve the glue and lead in the water, by means of a water-bath. Add the alcohol, and continue the heat for a few minutes. Lastly, pour into bottles, while it is still hot.
Take nitric acid, any quantity, and as much iron shavings from the lathe as the acid will dissolve; heat the iron as hot as it can be handled with the hand; then add to it the acid in small quantities as long as the acid will dissolve it; then slowly add double the quantity of soft water that there was of acid, and put in iron again as long as the acid will dissolve it. 2. Take prussiate of potash, dissolve it in hot water to make a strong solution, and make sufficient of it with the first to give the depth of tint desired, and the blue is made. Or:
A very passable Prussian blue is made by taking sulphate of iron (copperas) and prussiate of potash, equal parts of each; and dissolving each separately in water, then mixing he two waters.
1. Take sugar of lead and Paris white, of each 5 lbs.; dissolve them in hot water. 8. Take bi-chromate of potash, 6½ oz., and dissolve it in hot water also; each article to be dissolved separately; then mix all together, putting in the bi-chro-mate last. Let stand twenty-four hours.
Take Paris white, 6½ lbs.; sugar of lead, and blue vitriol, of each, 3½ lbs.; alum, 10½ oz.; best soft Prussian blue and chrome yellow, of each, 3 1/3 lbs. Mix thoroughly while in fine powder, and add water, 1 gallon, stirring well and let stand three or four hours.
Take spruce yellow, and color it with a solution of chrome yellow and Prussian blue, until you give it the shade you wish.
Blue vitriol, 5 lbs.; sugar of lead 6¼ lbs.; arsenic, 2½ lbs.; bi-chromate of potash, 1½ oz.; mix them thoroughly in line powder, and add water 3 parts, mixing well again, and let stand three or four hours.
1. Take sulphate of copper any quantity, and dissolve it in hot water. 2. Take prussiate of potash, dissolve it in hot water to make a strong solution; mix of the two solutions, as in the blue, and the color is made.
Brazil wood, 1 lb., and boil it for two hours, having 1 gallon of water at the end; then strain it, and boil alum, 1 lb., in the same water until dissolved; when sufficiently cool to admit the hand, add muriate of tin, ¾ oz. Now have Paris white, 12½ lbs.; moisten up to a salvy consistence, and when the first is cool stir them thoroughly together. Let stand twenty-four hours.
Common salt, 100 lbs. and litharge, 400 lbs., are ground together with water, and kept for some time in a gentle heat, water being added to supply the loss by evaporation; the carbonate of soda is then washed out with more water, and the white residuum heated till it acquires a fine yellow color.
No. 1. Metallic antimony, 12 lbs.; red load, 8 lbs.; oxide of zinc, 4 lbs. Mix; calcine, triturate well together. and rose in a crucible: the fused mass must be ground and elutriated to a line powder.
Whiting, 3 cwt.: ochre, 2 cwt.; ground white lead, 25 lbs. Factitious linseed oil to grind.
Road dust, 2 cwt.; ground white lead, ½ cwt; whiting, 1 cwt.; ground umber, 14 lbs.; lime water, 6 gals. Factitious linseed oil to grind.
Whiting, 70 lbs.; boiled oil, 30 lbs. water, 2 gals. Mix; if too thin, add more whiting; if too thick, add more off.
 
Continue to: