Rust can be removed from iron by rubbing it with oil of tartar (oleum tartari), using a woollen rag.
Brass-ware, when it has become dull or rusty, may be renewed and made to look like gold. Take sal-ammoniac, grind it in a mortar with saliva; rub this on the brass; lay it on hot coals to dry it well, and tub it with a woollen cloth. So says Johann Wallberger; adding: “With this art a certain man did once, in Rome, gain much money, inasmuch as he thereby did clean the brass lamps of the churches and other things of the same metal.” There is another preparation for the same purpose still more gold-like. It consists of sulphur, chalk, and the soot from wood fires. But as it soon disappears, the brass should be lackered or varnished.
The best cleaner for brass with which I am acquainted is a German preparation used by Barkentin & Krall, Regent Street, from whom it can also be obtained.
A very strong cement, and one good for luting, can be made by combining sturgeon’s bladder, dissolved in spirits, with finest pulverised flint or sand.
Glue, into which resin has been well infused by heat, combined with sand or ashes or clay, forms a strong cement, useful for all kinds of coarse work.
A very good, strong cement is made as follows:—To three-eighths of a pound of water add three-eighths of a pound of spirits and a quarter of a pound of starch; also, prepare two ounces of good glue in water, mixed with two ounces of thick turpentine, and stir well into the first composition. This is a very good bookbinders’ glue.
The tufa or soft stone which abounds in Italy and elsewhere is much used when reduced to powder and burned for building. It is also useful as a cement. An old writer says it can be brayed in a mortar, but that “there are many who, for lack of a mortar, take old baptismal fonts out of the churches, and in lieu of a pestle use the clapper of a church bell.”
A curious decoration may be made by drawing figures—for example, of animals—with glue or gum on a wall surface, and then powdering it with cloth-dust of appropriate colours. These figures can be stencilled.
As of all repairing and restoring that of human beauty is the most important, it may be worth while to give here a few recipes, which have held their own for centuries:—
To make Wrinkles and Freckles disappear.—This is more possible than is generally supposed, and I have known a lady, a great beauty, of whom all my readers have heard, who at fifty years of age had artificially and miraculously preserved her face in perfect smoothness, though I do not know by what means. The following is given by Wallberger:—“Take fine, pure alum, compound it carefully with the fresh white of eggs, and boil it gently in a pipkin, stirring it constantly with a wooden stick or spoon till it forms a soft paste. Spread this on the face, morning and evening, for two or three days, and you will soon see that it is free from wrinkles and freckles, and marvellously fair and pleasant to view. Frivolous souls may carry the sinful misuse of such beauty to their own account; the virtuous hold in horror all such deeds” (Zauberbuch, 1760).