—Brush the wood with a saturated solution of ferrous-sulphate and it will make it inky black. When used on white holly, or any other close grained wood, it gives it a real ebony look. Put the solution on with a soft brush. After the ebony stain has been used the wood should be polished with wax to give it a dull finish.
Fumed Oak.
—Oak can be colored a beautiful brown by putting it in a box with a tight fitting lid in which is a saucer of ammonia; paste up the cracks around the lid tight and leave it for a couple of days when it will take on a brown color which is known by the trade name of fumed oak.
CHAPTER III
METALS AND METAL WORKING
There is something about working metals that makes a tremendously strong appeal to a fellow and yet it is just as easy to fashion these elements as it is to shape wood, that is, if you have the right kind of tools to do it with.
Then there is another good thing about working metals and that is the tools you need don’t cost very much and you can soon make enough useful things to pay for them.
Metal working, like wood working, can be divided into two classes and these are (1) the strictly practical, and (2) the purely ornamental, but you can often combine them in an object which possesses both utility and artistic merit.
It is my intention to tell you in this chapter about the tools that you need to do ordinary metal work, such as sawing, drilling, bending, filing, etc. As in working wood you ought to have a bench, or a good strong table will do.