How To Raise Old Veneers

First, wash the surface with boiling water, and, with a coarse cloth, remove dirt or grease; then place it before the fire, or heat it with a caul; oil its surface with common linseed oil, place it again to the fire, and the heat will make the oil penetrate quite through the veneer, and soften the glue underneath; then, while hot, raise the edge gently with a chisel, and it will separate completely from the ground: be careful not to use too great force, or the work will be spoiled. Again, if it should get cold during the operation, apply more oil, and heat it again. Repeat this process till the veneer is entirely separated, then wash off the old glue and proceed to lay it again as a new veneer.

How To Take Out Bruises In Furniture

Wet the part with warm water; double a piece of brown paper five or six times, soak it, and lay it on the place; apply on that a hot flat-iron till the moisture is evaporated. If the bruise be not gone, repeat the process. After two or three applications, the dent or bruise will be raised level with the surface. If the bruise be small, merely soak it with warm water, and apply a red-hot poker very near the stir face; keep it continually wet, and in a few minutes the bruise will disappear.

Cements For Stopping Flaws In Wood

Put any quantity of fine sawdust of the same wood your work is made with into an earthen-pan, and pour boiling water on it, stir it well, and let it remain for a week or ten days, occasionally stirring it; then boil it for some time, and it will be of the consistence of pulp or paste; put it into a coarse cloth, and squeeze all the moisture from it. Keep for use, and, when wanted, mix a sufficient quantity of thin glue to make it into a paste; rub it well into the cracks, or fill up the holes in your work with it. When quite hard and dry, clean your work oft", and, if carefully done, you will scarcely discern the imperfection.

Mahogany-Colored Cement

Melt two ounces of beeswax and half an ounce of Indian red, and a small quantity of yellow ochre, to bring the cement to the desired color; keep it in a pipkin for use.

Cement For Turners

Melt together beeswax one ounce, resin half an ounce,and pitch half an ounce; stir in the mixture some very fine brickdust to give it a body. If too soft, add more resin; if too hard, more wax. When nearly cold, make it up into cakes or rolls, which keep for use.

This will be found very useful for fastening any piece of wood on the chuck, which is done by applying the roller of cement to the chuck and it will adhere with sufficient force.

Tracing Paper

A good firm tissue paper washed with a mixture of six parts spirits of wine, one of resin, one of nut oil. Apply with a sponge.

Tracing Paper

Canada balsam and turpentine equal parts, will make a varnish which, if applied to one side of a good thin paper, will answer well. If it is meant to take watercolor, a coat of ox gall must be laid on.

Tracing Paper

Dissolve a piece of white beeswax, about the size of a walnut, in half a pint of spirits of turpentine; then, having procured some very fine white, woven tissue-paper, lay it on a clean board, and, with a soft brush dipped in this liquid, go over one side, and then turn it over, and apply it to the other; hang it up in a place free from dust, to dry. It will be ready for use in a few days. Some add a small quantity of resin, or use resin instead of wax.

Cracks In Drawing Boards

The material generally used in stopping the above is a composition made of glue and chalk, worked up to the consistency of putty, and applied to the board in a soft state, allowed to dry, and smoothed off with sand-paper.

How To Cut Good Steel Scrapers

Part of the blade of a broken saw makes the best scrapers; but, as it is hard, it is very difficult to cut it into the required form. The best and most expe-ditious way is to mark it out to the size wanted, and then to place the blade or steel plate in a vice whose chaps shut very close, placing the mark even with the face of the vice, and the part to be cut to waste above the vice. Then with a cold-chisel, or a common steel-firmer that has its basil broken off, holding it close to the vice and rather inclined upwards, begin at one end of the steel plate, and with a sharp blow of the hammer it will cut it. Keep going on by degrees, and you will with ease cut it to the shape required; then grind the edges of your scraper level, and finish by rubbing it on your Turkey-stone.

Oiling Tools

An English authority says: When a set of bench-planes is French-polished, they certainly look very well on the bench for a short time, but the French-polish does not add to their durability or usefulness, and I think, gives them anything but a workmanlike appearance. My plan is to knock the irons out, weigh them, and then drop them into the linseed oil barrel, and let them stay there a week; I then take and weigh them again to ascertain how much oil they have absorbed. The oil goes right to the heart of the planes, and as it sets it makes them hard, and they may be depended upon for keeping their shape. Rubbing them over every dinner-hour for a week or two will give them a beautiful surface, and they will not show scratches or dints as they would if they were French-polished.

How To Mark Tools

Coat over the tools with a thin layer of wax or hard tallow, by first warming the steel and rubbing on the wax; warm until it flows and let it cool. When hard, mark the name through the wax with a graver and apply some aquafortis (nitric acid); after a few moments wash off the acid thoroughly with water, warm the metal enough to melt the wax, and wipe it oft* with a soft rag. The letters will be found etched into the steel.

Varnish For Tools

Take 2 oz. tallow, 1 oz. resin; melt together and strain, while hot, to remove the specks which are in the resin. Apply a slight coat on the tools with a brush, and it will keep off the rust for any length of time.