Varnish for Oil Paintings.
According to the number of your pictures, take the whites of the same number of eggs, and an equal number of pieces of sugar candy, the size of a hazel nut, dissolved, and mix it with a tea-spoonful of brandy; beat the whites of your eggs to a froth, and let it settle; take the clear, put it to your brandy and sugar, mix them well together, and varnish over your pictures with it.
This is much better than any other varnish, as it is easily washed off when your pictures want cleaning again.
Method of cleaning Paper-Hangings.
Cut into eight half quarters a quartern loaf, two days old; it must neither be newer nor staler. With one of these pieces, after having blown off all the dust from the paper to be cleaned, by the means of a good pair of bellows, begin at the top of the room, holding the crust in the hand, and wiping lightly downward with the crumb, about half a yard at each stroke, till the upper part of the hangings is completely cleaned all round. Then go round again, with the like sweeping stroke downwards, always commencing each successive course a little higher than the upper stroke had extended, till the bottom be finished. This operation, if carefully performed, will frequently make very old paper look almost equal to new.
Great caution must be used not by any means to rub the paper hard, nor to attempt cleaning it the cross, or horizontal way. The dirty part of the bread, too, must be each time cut away, and the pieces renewed as soon as it may become necessary.
To make Wooden Stairs have the appearance of Stone.
Paint the stairs, step by step, with white paint, mixed with strong drying oil. Strew it thick with silver sand.
It ought to be thoroughly dry next morning, when the loose sand is to be swept off. The painting and sanding is to be repeated, and when dry, the surface is to be done over with pipe-clay, whiting, and water; which may be boiled in an old saucepan, and laid on with a bit of flannel, not too thick, otherwise it will be apt to scale off.
A penny cake of pipe-clay, which must be scraped, is the common proportion to half a lump of whiting.