Harper's Household Handbook: A guide to easy ways of doing woman's workMcCulloch-Williams, Martha
General
Harper's Household Handbook: A guide to easy ways of doing woman's work
McCulloch-Williams, Martha
Formulas, recipes, etc.; Home economics
=Wax Finish for Stained or Hardwood=: Melt over boiling water half a
pound of yellow beeswax with half a pint of sweet oil. Beat hard a
minute, take from fire, add half a cup of turpentine, and beat until
nearly cold. Keep covered in glass or earthenware. Apply soft, but not
liquid, with a clean flannel, and polish by rubbing until hot.
=Dancing-wax=: Used on Colonial ballrooms. Melt together over boiling
water a pound of yellow beeswax and half a pint of filtered neat’s-foot
oil. Add resin the size of a walnut melted in half a cup of new unsalted
butter. Beat well, take from fire, stir in a cup of turpentine, and keep
covered. Apply soft, and polish with hard rubbing.
=Furniture Polish No. 1=: Equal parts of sweet oil, choloroform, and
alcohol shaken hard together, rubbed on quickly, then polished by
rubbing until hot.
=Piano Polish=: Shake hard together equal parts of sweet oil,
turpentine, and vinegar. Add a very little naphtha, apply with silk or
flannel, and rub hard afterward.
=French Polish=: For dark wood, especially old mahogany. Melt together
over hot water ten parts pale resin, ten parts palm oil. Mix, take from
fire, add eighty parts benzine, one part essence peppermint, and half a
part essence of verbena. Keep sealed in glass, away from heat. Use away
from light or fire. Apply with soft old silk, and polish by rubbing with
very soft silk or flannel.
=The Glue Pot=: Melt glue only as required. Cover dry glue with cold
water after breaking up well, put salt water in the bath outside, bring
to a boil, then simmer until the glue ropes a little. Thin with hot
vinegar. To mend things white or light-colored, melt the clearest glue
in a china cup inside a saucepan, and thin after melting with gin
instead of vinegar.
=To Make Glue Size=: Melt a pound of glue, thin with a quart of hot
vinegar, then stir well through two to five gallons hot water, according
to the strength required.
=Vegetable Size=: Tie a gallon of wheat bran or cornmeal bran loosely in
net or cheesecloth; boil for five hours in five gallons of water,
filling up as it boils away. Add a lump of alum after the bran bag is
removed. Apply hot to walls or wood.
=Calcimine=: Stir sifted whiting into strong glue size until it is
thicker than cream. Clear with a little blueing. Thin at need with
boiling water. Tint with earth colors in powder. Red and yellow ocher
mixed give a pinkish-cream tint; yellow alone true cream. Indian red
makes pink; by adding burnt sienna the color is pinkish fawn. Yellow
ocher with burnt umber gives various shades of brown. Always mix colors
rather pale at first, try out on a board, then add what is lacking.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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