Hold the badge with the pin on top of it in the flame of your alcohol lamp or Bunsen burner and when the soldering fluid begins to sizzle touch the pin with a piece of wire solder. When the solder runs let it cool and the pin will be on securely enough for all ordinary purposes.
Next polish up the badge by rubbing it with powdered rottenstone mixed with a little machine oil and then finish it off with some crocus. If you have a lathe of any kind get a felt wheel[84] and use the rottenstone and oil on it and then the crocus.
[84] F. W. Gesswein Co., Inc., 16 John St., sells engravers’, opticians’, platers’ and polishers’ supplies.
Heat the stamped surface of the pin just a little and put some black enamel, which you can get at the hardware store, into the letters; rub off all that sticks to the surface but leave all that is in the sunk letters. Put it away and let the enamel dry thoroughly when you will have a regular badge as shown at [F].
Burning Brands
A burning brand is useful to mark the handles of tools, boxes or anything made of wood by burning a name or a design into them.
How to Make a Burning Brand.
—To make a burning brand, say with your initials on it, make a cardboard box ³⁄₄ inch wide, 1 inch high and 3 inches long and without a top.
Mix up some plaster of Paris, fill the box with it and let it set. When it is perfectly hard and dry tear the cardboard box away from it, and on the narrow side of it, that is the one that is ³⁄₄ inch wide, mark out your initials, reversing the letters just as they are on type.
Take a sharp pocket knife and cut away the plaster from around the letters to a depth of ³⁄₈ inch, thus leaving the letters standing out in relief like type letters as shown at [A in Fig. 81]. Give it a couple of coats of shellac varnish[85] which not only protects the plaster to a certain extent but prevents it from sticking to the mold.