Will Keep fit for use for some time, if covered with a damp cloth while moist.

How To Restore The Elasticity Of Cane-Chair Bottoms

Turn up the chair bottoms, and with a hot water and sponge wash the cane-work well, so that it may be well soaked; should it be dirty, you must add soap. Let it dry in the air, and you will find it as tight and firm as when new, provided the cane is not broken.

How To Make Parchment Transparent

Soak a thin skin of parchment in a strong ley of wood ashes, often wringing it out till it becomes transparent; then strain it on a frame, and let dry.

This will be much improved if, after it is dry, you give it a coat, on both sides, of clear mastic varnish, diluted with spirits of turpentine.

Tinting On Parchment

On a good skin you may get an even tint, as follows: After "inking in" the plan, cover (with a large color brush) rather more than the whole of it with a strong wash of alum dissolved in water, taking care that every portion is saturated by the solution, and when dry brush away the dry alum, and the parchment will then take color almost as easily as paper, and the ink will not be disturbed.

India Ink Running

If it is for drawing plans you may prevent it running by adding a little sugar to the India ink.

Erasing Indian Ink

The most effective mode of erasing Indian ink lines is by rubbing the part to be erased with sandpaper of the finest quality, which will not only effectually remove the ink, but will leave a clear, smooth surface, which will take the ink better than at first, and may be colored upon.

To Make Carbon Paper - Carbon paper, for copying or duplicating, can be made in the following manner: Take sweet oil, mixed to the consistence of cream, with either of the following paints (to produce the color desired): Prussian blue, lampblack, Venetian red, or chrome green; they should be ground fine on the stone. Use rather thin hut firm paper, put on with a sponge, and wipe off as dry as possible; then lay them between uncolored paper, and press by laying a weight or some other heavy flat substance upon them until the surplus oil is absorbed, when it is ready for use.

Removing Oil Stains From Tiles

You can remove oil stains from tiles completely by mixing fuller's earth into a thick paste with water, and spreading it over the tiles, letting it remain twenty-four hours, and then wiping it off. If the mark, then, has not quite gone, put on another paste.

How To Polish Floors

Put some spermaceti into a saucepan on the fire, and mix it with enough turpentine to make it quite fluid ; then with a piece of flannel put it very thinly on the floor. It must then be rubbed with a dry flannel and brushed in the same way that oak stairs are polished. This part of the process, rubbing and brushing, takes a long time to do thoroughly.

How To Polish Floors

Dissolve half a pound of potash in three pints of water, in a saucepan on the fire; when the water boils throw in 1 ft. of beeswax, cut up in small pieces; stir well until the wax is quite melted. When the polish is cold, if it be too thick, add more water, then with a brush paint the boards evenly with it; and when it has dried rub them with a flannel tied at the end of a broom.

Black Wax

Add one ounce of beeswax to half an ounce of Burgundy pitch; melt them together, and add one ounce and a half of ivory-black, ground very line, and dried.

Green Wax

Melt one ounce of beeswax, and add half an ounce of verditer; let the pipkin be large enough, as the wax will immediately boil up. Stir it well, and add the eighth part of an ounce of resin, when it will be sufficiently hard and fit for use.

How To Polish Tortoise-Shell Or Horn

Having scraped your work perfectly smooth and level, rub it with very fine sand-paper or Dutch rushes; repeat the rubbing with a bit of felt dipped in a very finely powdered charcoal with water, and lastly, with rotten-stone or putty-powder; and finish with a piece of soft wash-leather, damped with a little sweet oil.

How To Clean Looking Glasses

Sponge down the glass with gum and water, equal parts, then dust down with whitening, and finish with a soft old silk handkerchief.

How To Remove Ink Stains

Ink stains may be removed from a mahogany table by putting a few drops of spirits of niter into a teaspoonful of water, and touching the part stained with a feather dipped into the mixture; immediately the ink stain disappears, the place must be rubbed with a rag wet with cold water, or there will be a white mark, which will not easily be removed. Ink stains on silver or plated articles may be removed immediately and effectually without doing any injury to the things, by making a little chloride of lime into a paste with water and rubbing the stains until they disappear, and afterwards washing the article with soap and water. Ink stains may be removed from colored table covers by dissolving a teaspoonful of oxalic acid in a teacup-ful of hot water and rubbing the stained part well with the solution. Ink stains may be taken out of anything white by simply putting a little powdered salts of lemon on the stain, damping it, allowing it to remain about five minutes, and then washing it out with soap and water, when the stain will disappear. Ink may be removed from boards by applying some strong muriatic acid or spirits of salt with a piece of rag and afterwards well washing the place with water.

How To Remove Stains From Wood

To half a pint of soft water put an ounce of oxalic acid and half an ounce of butter of antimony; shake it well, and when dissolved it will be very useful in extracting stains, as well as ink from wood, if not of too long standing.

How To Clean Velvet

Velvet requires very careful manipulation, as it loses its fine appearance if wrung or pressed when it is wet. To remove dust: - Strew very fine dry sand upon the velvet, and brush in the direction of the lines until all the sand is removed. The brush must be clean. To remove dirt: - Dissolve ox-gall in nearly boiling clean water, and add some spirits of wine. Dip a soft brush into this solution and brush the dirt out of the velvet. It may require repeated brushing. After this, hang it evenly up to dry. For finishing, apply a weak solution of gum by means of a sponge to the reverse side of the velvet.

How To Remove Paint Or Stain From Wood

Dissolve potash in water, making a strong solution, with this wash the surface of the work, allowing it to soak a few minutes. If the paint cannot then be scraped off. give the wood another application, and repeat until the paint is removed. Afterward, wash the surface with clean water sufficiently to ensure the removal of all the potash.

How To Remove Varnish From Wood

A strong application of ordinary spirits of camphor will remove almost any kind of polish or varnish. Give the spirit time to evaporate before repolishing, or it will injure the new polish.

The solution of potash, mentioned above, will also remove varnish.

Tests For Gilding

If a gilt surface be touched with a drop of chloride of gold or nitrate of silver solution, the former will produce a brown, the latter a grey spot if the coating be an alloy, but will have no effect upon pure gold. For gilt paper, moisten with a drop of chloride of sulphur, which will immediately produce a dark brown margin if the covering is not pure gold. Metallic spangles shaken in close flasks with chloride of sulphur, suffer no change if gold, otherwise they gradually darken; but if under slight pressure, as in hermetically sealed tubes, gold spangles disappear in a short time by conversion into chloride of gold.

Anti-Attrition

This mixture is made of one part of plumbago or blacklead ground very fine, and four parts of hog's lard or grease, mixed well together. It prevents the effects of friction much better than oil or other grease, and is very useful the turner, and will be found to make the lathe work much easier, as well as to be a great saving in oil, which with constant use grows stiff, and sensibly impedes the motion; while this preparation, once applied, will last a long time without requiring renewal.

How To Remove Grease From Cloth

Drop on the spot some oil of tartar, or salt of wormwood, which has been left in a damp place till it turns into a fluid; then immediately wash the place with lukewarm soft water, and then with cold water, and the spot will disappear.

This will be found very useful, as it frequently happens that the cloth of the card tables, and the inside flaps of secretaries, are spotted and greasy. By proceding as above, every spot of grease will be completely taken out.