To remedy this, there are four means at your command:—
| The Burnisher. | The Scraper. |
| Charcoal. | Hammering out. |
51. The Burnisher.—As these passages are limited in extent, and not very deeply bitten, you may use the burnisher to reduce them. Moisten it with saliva, and take only a small spot at a time, holding the instrument down flat. If you were to use only the end, you might make a cavity in the copper. The burnisher flattens and enlarges the surface of the copper, and consequently diminishes the width of the line. The tone, therefore, is reduced.
On fine, close, and equal work the burnisher does excellent service, the effect being analogous to that of the crumb of bread on a design on paper.
It is less efficacious on deeply bitten work, because it rounds off the edges of the lines as it penetrates into the furrows, and thus detracts somewhat from the freshness of tone,—an unpleasant result, which, in very fine work, is beyond the power of the eye to see.
You may use the burnisher to get rid of certain spots produced in the foliage by lines placed too closely together, and by the same means you can reduce those exaggerated passages in the stone-work of the right-hand column.
You can also burnish these useless little blotches in the mountains.
52. Charcoal.—Whenever it is necessary to reduce the whole of a distance, the use of charcoal is to be preferred. Charcoal made of willow, or of other soft woods, which can be had of the plate-makers, is used flat, impregnated with oil or water; it must be freed from its bark, as this would scratch the plate. It wears the metal away uniformly, and does not injure the crispness of the lines. Rub the passage to be reduced with the charcoal, regulating the length of time by the degree of delicacy you desire to attain. At the beginning soak your charcoal in water, so as leave it more tooth; then clean it, and continue with oil, which reduces the wear on the copper. The eye is sufficient to judge of the wear; the way in which the charcoal takes hold of the copper, and the copper-colored spots which it shows, may serve as guides. As the effectiveness of the different kinds of charcoal varies, these divers qualities of softness and coarseness are utilized according to the nature of the correction to be made. It is well to know, also, that it takes hold much more actively if used in the direction of the grain, than transversely. You may, according to circumstances, commence with a piece of coal having considerable tooth, continue with another that is less aggressive, and wind up with a somewhat soft piece. The heavier the charcoal the coarser its tooth, the lightest being the softest. The plate must be washed, so as to keep the charcoal always clean; as otherwise the dust produced, which forms a paste, will wear down the bottom of the furrows, and the result, in the proof, will be dull and reddish lines.
Charcoal is also used to remove the traces of the needle in those parts of the plate in which changes were made while the drawing was still in progress.
53. The Scraper.—The scraper is more efficacious than the burnisher in the case of small places that have been deeply bitten. If the scraper is sufficiently sharp, it leaves no trace whatever on the lowered surface of the copper.