TREATMENT FOR HARDWOOD FLOORS.
First see that the floor is clean and smooth; then give it a coat of best oil, with japan sufficient to make it dry; cut the japan in turps. Then put on a good mineral paste, filler in the usual way by rubbing the filler well into the wood; then clean off all the surplus. When dry, sandpaper and putty up well with colored, hard putty, and put on a coat of shellac; if too glossy, rub down with powdered pumice and oil. Be careful to have the putty match the floor.
WHITEWASH FOR OUTSIDE WORK.
Take one-half pound of fresh burnt lime. Dip it in water and let it slack in the open air. Melt two ounces of bagundy pitch by gentle heat, in six ounces of linseed oil; then add two quarts of skim milk while the lime is hot, add the mixture of pitch and oil, a little at a time while hot, and stir it in; then add three pounds of bolted whiting and stir. Add more milk if too thick for the brush.
THE STRAINER.
Don’t forget to use the strainer. After you have put in your best licks to clean up and sandpaper a job, it is the height of folly to daub it up with paint full of skins and specks. Oil paint is liable to be “skinny” in the keg. Miller’s bolting cloth makes a good strainer, and common cheese cloth at five cents a yard does very well for ordinary purposes.
TO KILL GREASE SPOTS ON WOOD.
Use a wash of saltpeter or a thin lime wash, then rinse with clear water. Treat blacksmith’s smoke in the same way.
KALSOMINE.
To please an old friend I give the following recipe for kalsomine. He says it is good. I never used it, so you will have to take his word for it.