HOW TO DO IT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18458, 17 April 1922, Page 8

HOW TO DO IT

THINGS YOU MAY LIKE TO KNOW

TO BLACKEN STEEL AND IRON. 1. Take a. pint of gold size and one gill terebene, and mix well with sufficient gas drop black to give it the desired intensity. Apply with a soft brush. The mixture dries hard in 20 minutes, and should be strained before using. 2. Mix half a pint white hard varnish, half a pint best white polish, and a little spirit black, and apply with a sponge or soft brash.

OILS BEST TO MIX FOR. PAINTING ON GLASS, CANVAS, ETC.

The best oil to use is white linseed oil. You can also use white copal varnish, and to get your colours to dry you can use liquid white dryers if your work is not exposed to the weather; and to keep the brilliancy in your colours you must give your'work two or three coats of paint, or varnish same. The best varnish to use is pale copal varnish. TO EXTERMINATE MOTHS FROM A PIANO. 1. 7oiz. benzine, Joz. turps. 6 drops oil of lavender, mixed ami used with a scent spray inside the piano. 2. One pint methylated spirit, 2oz. insect powder. icz naphthaleno. Crush the naphthalene, then put with insect powder into the spirit, and strain in a week. Spray this tincture ot> as above. These will speedily kill and drive away the moths without injury to the instrument. RENOVATING FURNITURE. Wash the furniture with a. weak solution of soap and water until absolutely free from dirt and grease; then use a reviver, made up of the following ingredients : Equal parts of vinegar, turpentine, and raw linseed oil, adding a little methylated spirits. Shake well before using, apply, and rub off with soft cloths, and make a little reviver go a long way. This course should be adopted once m every six weeks.

HOW TO TREAT A BURNING CHIMNEY.

If it is desired to extinguish the fire in the chimney which has been lighted by a fire in the fire-place, shut all the doors in the apartment, so as to prevent any current of air up the chimney, then throw’ a few handfuls of common tine salt upon the fire in the grate, which will immediately extinguish that in the chimney. The philosophy of this is that, in the process of burning the salt, muriate acid gas is evolved, which is a prompt extinguisher of fire.

TO REMOVE MOTHS FROM FUR. If nibths have already got into the fur the only effective plan is to stove it with sulphur fumes, i.e., place the furs inside a box or small room, made airtight bp pasting paper over all crevices or joints, then get an old iron pan or dish, md put inside it some roll sulphur. Place a piece of red-hot iron upon the sulphur, quickly close up the box, and paste over the joints with paper; leave for eight or nine hours, then take out and hang in a warm place, and put away in a drawer o’* box.

TO MAKE SHOEMAKER’S WAX (ABOUT 50 BALLS).

1. Take Siam benzoin loz-, cocoa butter 40z., yellow wax 20oz. The wax and butter are melted together in a porcelain dish, and then then benzoin is added and allowed to digest for some time, frequently stirred. Then five fluid drachms of absolute alcohol are added, and allowed to evaporate, the fluid mixture being then filtered, if necessary, through a warm funnel. 2. Generally this wax is made of equal parts of rosin and pitch with an addition of 10 per cent, of tallow. After boiling, and while still warm, it is pulled out like sweetstuff, hung upon a hook, and pulled again and again until it becomes a bright yellowish, colour. When it is this colour it is good, as the pitch by this process is bleached. If wanted a black colour do not pull it out upon the hook. Ihe quantity may easily bo determined which is required to make 50 balls; if they weigh loz. each I y melting I 3/41b. each of resin and pitch, and adding soz. tallow, a suitable article could be made.

BLACKING FOR BOOT BOTTOMS. 1. Beat the yolks of two eggs and the white of one ; mix a tablespoon of gin and one of sugar, thicken with ivory black, and add it to the eggs. Use as common blacking. 2. Ivory black Hoz., treacle l|oz.. sperm oil 3 drachms, strong oil of vitriol 3 drahms, common vinegar half a pint. Mix the ivory black, treacle, and vinegar, then mix the sperm oil and oil vitriol separately, and add them to the other mixture. 3. Mix together two pints of the best vinegar and one pint of soft water; stir into it £lb. glue broken up, lib. logwood chips, Joz. finely powdered indigo, ?,oz. lic-st soft soap, £oz. isinglass. Put the mixture over the fire and let it l>oil for ten minutes or so; strain the liquid, then bottle and cork it. When cold it is ready for use; apply with a clean sponge. 4. Mix one part of ivory black, half of treacle, an eigth of sweet oil. then add a quarter of vitriol and an eigth of hydrochloric acid. Dilute each ingredient with three times its weight of water before mixing. 5. Take 21bs. of ivory black in fine powder, treacle lUbs., quarter of a pint of sperm oil; rub the black and oil well together; then add the treacle, and well mix. 6. Black sealing wax 40z.. methylated spirits of wine 16oz. , nut in a bottle, and dissolve by standing bottle in hot water.