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.
Take 1 lb. muriatic acid, and ½ lb. white arsenic. Put them into an earthen vessel, and then proceed in the usual manner.
One ounce muriate of ammonia,½ oz. alum, ¼ oz. arsenic, dissolved all together in 1 pint of strong vinegar.
Copper and brass vessels may be covered with a firmly adherent layer of pure zinc by boiling them in contact with a solution of chloride of zinc, pure zinc turnings being at the same time present in considerable excess.
Emery, 4 lbs.; shellac, ½ lb.; melt the shellac over a slow fire; stir In the emery, and pour it into a mould of plaster of Paris. When cold it is ready for use.
Grind together black lead with 4 times its weight of lard or tallow. Camphor is sometimes added (7 lbs. to the hundred weight.)
Linseed oil, 1 gallon; alkanet root, 3 oz.; rose pink, 1 oz. Boil them together ten minutes, and strain so that the oil be quite clear.
Make isinglass and brandy into a paste, with powdered egg-shells very finely ground. You may give it what color you choose; but cast it warm into your mould which you previously oil over; leave the figure in the mould till dry. and you will find on taking it out that it bears a very strong resemblance to ivory.
The page or picture is soaked in a solution, first of potassa, and then of tartaric acid. This produces a perfect diffusion of crystals of bitartrate of potassa through the texture of the unprinted part of the paper. As this salt resists oil, the ink roller may now be passed over the surface, without transferring any part of its contents except to the printed part.
Cut square across with a screw-head file, a little back from the point above the fork, and, when you have thus cut into it to a sufficient depth, bend forward the desired distance the piece thus partially detached. In the event of the piece snapping off while bending - which, however, rarely happens - file down the point level with the fork, and insert a pin, English lever style.
Sulphuric acid, 2¼ oz; nitric acid, 2 oz.; rain-water, 2 oz.; saltpetre, 1 dr.; mix together in a glass bottle, and let stand a few hours. Apply by dipping he article into the solution quickly, and then at once wash off thoroughly, and rinse in clean rain-water and dry in saw-dust. Removes instantaneously all stains or discolorations, and gives to the article a perfectly bright appearance.
 
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