When your work is covered with gold, set it by to dry, it will be ready to burnish in about eight or ten hours; but it will depend on the warmth of the room or state of the air, and practice will enable you to judge of the proper time.

When it is ready, those parts which you intend to burnish must be dusted with a soft brush, and wiping your burnisher with a piece of soft wash-leather (quite dry), begin to burnish about an inch or two in length at a time, taking care not to lean too hard, but with a gentle and quick motion apply the tool till you find it equally bright all over.

Matting Or Dead Gold

Those parts of your work which look dull from not being burnished, are now to be matted, that is, are to be made to look like dead gold; for if left in its natural state it will have a shining appearance, which must be thus rectified: -

Grind some Vermillion, or yellow ochre, very fine, and mix a very small portion either with the parchment-size or with the white of an egg, and with a very soft brush lay it even and smooth on the parts intended to look dull; if well done, it will add greatly to the beauty of the work.

Finishing

It is now only necessary to touch the parts in the hollows with a composition made by grinding vermillion, gamboge, and red lead, very fine, with oil of turpentine. and applying it carefully with a small brush in the parts required, and your work is completed.

Sometimes the finishing is done by means of shell gold, which is the best method; it should be diluted with gum arabic, and applied with a small brush.

To Make Shell Gold

Take any quantity of leaf gold, and grind it, with a small portion of honey, to a fine powder; add a little gum arabic and sugar-candy, with a little water, and mix it well together; put it in a shell to dry against you want it.

An Excellent Receipt To Burnish Gold Size

One ounce of blacklead, ground very fine, one ounce of deer suet, one ounce of red chalk, and one pound of pipe-clay, ground with weak parchment-size to a stiff consistency, to be used as directed in the article 'Size for oil gilding.'