I may add that I seldom walk out in Florence without seeing old worn faïences for sale for a mere trifle which with a little retouching, gilding, and firing could be made quite valuable. In such instances there need be no complaint of destroying the venerable effect and value of antiquity. In them antique material may be legitimately employed as a basis for newer work, especially when it is broken away, worn down to the core, or full of holes. Now, with what this book teaches in his mind, the artist or tourist will very soon realise, if he be at all ingenious, or can avail himself of the aid of some friend who has even a very slight knowledge of art, that he can at a slight outlay purchase objects which will become very valuable when afterwards restored at home.
As I can imagine no head of a family, and no dealer in miscellaneous works of art or any small wares, no provider of furniture or furnisher, to whom this work will not be a most acceptable gift, so I am very confident that every traveller who has trunks to mend or broken straps to join, and every emigrant roughing it in the forests or the bush of Australia or Canada, may learn from it many useful devices, and the fact that with nothing more than a small tin of liquid glue and another of indiarubber he can effect more than could be imagined by any one who has not studied the subject. On this I speak not without experience, having found that, both as a soldier and a traveller in the Wild West of America, my knowledge of mending was of great use to my friends as well as myself. A perusal of the Index of what is here given will satisfy the reader that this manual is in fact a vade mecum for almost all sorts and conditions of men and women, and that there are none who would not be thankful for it.
A friend adds to these remarks the suggestion that this work may properly be included among the presents to a bride as an aid to housekeeping; and it will probably be admitted that it would prove quite as useful as many of the gifts which are usually bestowed on such occasions.
I have truly said that, while breaking and decay are universal, there are literally nowhere any generally accomplished repairers—that is to say, experts who know and can practise even what is set forth in this book. Certain menders of broken china there are, of whom the great authority on fictile restoration, Ris-Pasquot, declares that none can be trusted with anything valuable. There are so few needle-women who can sew up a rent perfectly that a lady “to the manor born” paid in Rome two pounds, or fifty lire, for being taught the stitch, described in this book, by which it can be done. That it was a great secret to an expert and accomplished needle-woman proves that it cannot be generally known. A house-furnisher in London doing a large business once explained to me with manifest pride how he had, by dint of persuasion and treating, obtained from another what is really one of the simplest recipes for restoring a brown stain. All of this being true, it is apparent enough that any accomplished mender and restorer, lady or gentleman, can hardly fail to make a living by the art; and I sincerely believe that it is the simple truth that it is set forth in the following pages so fully and clearly that any one who will make the experiment can learn from it how to make a living. This is effectively, in all its fulness, a new art and a new calling, and it is time that it were established.
It is a great mistake to suppose that manufacturers are necessarily good menders of what they make. I have found, as have my readers, that it is not the great watchmaker who oversees the production of thousands of watches to whom a watch can be most safely trusted for rehabilitation. For, in nine cases out of ten, it is some extremely humble brother of the craft, who does nothing but mend in a small shop, who restores your chronometer most admirably. The same is true as regards trunks anywhere out of England, since in Germany and France anything of the kind is invariably botched with incredible want of skill. This runs through most trades; for which reason I believe that a really well-accomplished general mender, earnestly devoted to the calling in every detail and resolved to be perfect in it, could ere long repair better than most manufacturers, since the latter, in these days, all work by machinery or by vast subdivision of labour, and not, so to speak, by hand. But all repairing must be by hand. We can make every detail of a watch or of a gun by machinery, but the machine cannot mend it when broken, much less a clock or a pistol!
The value of this book will appear to any one who knows how little really good repairing there is in Europe. Since writing the foregoing pages I have gone through the galleries of the Vatican and many other museums, and been amazed at the coarse, ignorant, and bungling manner in which the great majority of antique statues and other objects of immense value have been mended up. There is in most cases no pretence whatever to conceal the lines of repair, and when this has been attempted it has failed through ignorance of recipes and instructions which may be found in this work.
A MANUAL OF
MENDING AND REPAIRING
MATERIALS USED IN MENDING
“There are full many admirable and practical recipes (Hausmitteln), which are often known only in certain families.”—Die Natürliche Magie. By Johann C. Wiegleb, 1782.
The art of mending or of repairing may be broadly stated as being effected, firstly, by mechanical processes, such as those employed by carpenters in nailing and joining, in embroidery with the needle, and in metal-work with clumps, or soldering; and, secondly, by chemical means. The latter consist of cements and adhesives, which are, however, effectively the same thing. This glue, or gum, is an adhesive or sticker; that is, a simple substance which causes two objects to adhere. The same, when combined with powder of chalk or glass, would be a Cement. This latter term is again applied somewhat generally and loosely by many, not only to all adhesives, but also more correctly to all soft substances which harden, such as Portland cement, mortar, and putty, and which are often used by themselves to form objects, such as “bricks” and castings; but these latter, having also the quality of acting as adhesives or stickers, are naturally regarded as being the same.