LIQUID GLUE FOR KALSOMINE AND WALL SIZING.
For use in hot weather, a liquid glue which will not decompose and smell badly is very desirable to the workmen and the inmates of the house.
No. 1. To make such a glue fill a bottle a little more than half full of broken up good white glue, and fill the bottle with common whisky or equal parts of alcohol and water. Let it stand a few days and it will dissolve the glue; this glue will keep for years. Keep the bottle corked.
No. 2. Melt your glue in the usual way, thick as you will want it for any purpose, then put in ½ or ¾ ounce nitric acid to each pound of glue used; enough to give the glue a sour taste, like vinegar. The acid keeps it in a liquid state, and from spoiling. If you melt the glue in an iron kettle pour it into a wooden vessel, before you add the acid, otherwise the acid will act on the iron and blacken the glue. When wanted for use it can be thinned as desired with cold water; a cask full of this made up and kept air tight so the water will not evaporate will be found very handy to draw from, when you want a little in a hurry for glue size or kalsomine. When you make it up in this way put in at least 1 ounce of acid to the pound of glue to make sure it will keep liquid, so you can draw it from the cask.
Acetic acid will answer the same purpose as nitric acid, but it will take more of it and make the liquid glue more expensive.