63. To take Rust out of Steel.—Cover the steel with sweet oil well rubbed on it, and in forty-eight hours use unslaked lime finely powdered, to rub until all the rust disappears.
64. To clean Plate.—See that the plate is quite free from grease, by having been washed, if necessary, in warm soap and water. Then mix some whiting with water, and with a sponge rub it well on the plate, which will take the tarnish off, making use of a brush not too hard, to clean the intricate parts. Next, take some rouge-powder, mix it with water to about the thickness of cream, and with a small piece of leather (which should be kept for that purpose only) apply the rouge. This, with a little rubbing, will produce a most beautiful polish. This is the actual manner in which silversmiths clean their plate.
65. The common method of cleaning Plate.—First wash it well with soap and warm water; when perfectly dry, mix together a little whiting and sweet oil, so as to make a soft paste; then take a piece of flannel, rub it on the plate, then with a leather, and plenty of dry whiting, rub it clean off again; then with a clean leather and a brush, finish it.
66. An easy way to clean Plate.—A flannel and soap, and soft water, with proper rubbing, will clean plate nicely. It should be wiped dry with a good-sized piece of soft leather.
67. Plate Powder.—In most of the articles sold as plate powders, under a variety of names, there is an injurious mixture of quicksilver, which is said sometimes so far to penetrate and render silver brittle, that it will even break with a fall. Whiting, properly purified from sand, applied wet, and rubbed till dry, is one of the easiest, safest, and certainly the cheapest of all plate powders: jewelers and silversmiths, for small articles, seldom use any thing else. If, however, the plate be boiled a little in water, with an ounce of calcined hartshorn in powder to about three pints of water, then drained over the vessel in which it was boiled, and afterwards dried by the fire, while some soft linen rags are boiled in the liquid till they have wholly imbibed it; these rags will, when dry, not only assist to clean the plate, which must afterwards be rubbed bright with leather, but also serve admirably for cleaning brass locks, finger-plates, &c.