Secrets Relative to Mastichs, Cements, Sealing-wax, etc.

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I.  A subtile mastich to mend all sorts of broken vessels.
    Take whites of eggs, and beat them well to a froth.  Add to this soft curd cheese and quick lime, and begin beating a-new all together.  This may be used in mending whatever you will, even glass, and will stand both fire and water.

II.  A mastich for broken wares.
    Pound a stone jar into an impalpable powder, and add to it some whites of eggs and quick-lime.

III.  Another Mastich.
    Take quick-lime, cotton and oil, of each equal parts in weight.

IV.  A cement.
    Take rosin, one ounce; grinded tile, half an ounce; mastich, four ounces.

V.  A glue to lay upon gold.
    Boil an eel's skin, and a little quick-lime together; when boiled gently for the space of half an hour, strain it, and ass some whites of eggs beaten; bottle, and keep it for use.  The method to use it afterwards, is to warm it, and lay a coat of it on marble delph, Worcester, Stafford, or any other earthen wares, etc. and when nearly dry, write, paint, or draw what you please on it with a pencil, and gold in shell.

VI.  A size.
    Take half a pound of fresh cod's tripes, boil it in two quarts of white wine, reduced to one-third.  To take off the bad smell, add, while it boils, a little cloves and cinnamon.  Then throw this size in whatever mould you please, to make it in flakes.

VII.  An exceeding good size, called Orleans size.
    Take the whitest isingglass you can find; soak it in finely filtered quick-lime water, during twenty-four hours.  When that time is over, take it off bit by bit, and boil it in common water.

VIII.  Another for the same purpose, which resists water.
    Take quick-lime, turpentine, and soft curd cheese,  Mix these well together; and, with a point of a knife, put of this on the edges of the broken pieces of your ware, then join them together.

IX.  A cold cement for cisterns and fountains.
    Take litharge and boil in powder, of each two pounds; yellow ochre and rosin, of each four ounces; mutton suet, five ounces; mastich and turpentine, of each two ounces; oil of nuts, a sufficient quantity to render malleable.  Work these all together; and then it is fit for use.

X.   A lute to join broken vessels.
    Dissolve gum arabic in chamber-lye over a chafing-dish; stir with a stick till perfectly dissolved, then add an equal weight of flour, as you had of gum arabic, and concoct the whole for one quarter of an hour, or more, if requisite.

XI.  A strong glue with soft cheese.
    1.  Take a cheese from Auvergne.  Let it be the fattest and newest you can find, neither dry nor moist; wash it in very warm water, so long as it should remain clear; then set it to rot in clean water, till it begins to stink.  As soon as you find it is so, boil it in water with quick-lime; and when dissolved into a glue, take it off from the fire, it is done.
    2.  If you dry some whites of eggs in the sun, and then pounding them into a powder, you shall add some of that powder with the cheese when you dissolve it along with the lime, the glue will be so much the stronger.
    N. B. Observe that no other cheese, besides that which comes from Auvergne, has the quality requisite for this composition.

XII.  To make a strong mastich.
    Take one pound of rosin, a quarter of a pound of shoe-makers rosin, two ounce of new wax, two of black pitch, and one of tallow.  Boil all gently together on a slow fire; and when well incorporated together, add some brick dust, finely sifted, according to discretion.
    N. B. The quantity of tallow is to be proportioned to be degree of dryness you require in this composition; so that you may, on that principle, discretionally increase or diminish the prescribed dose of that ingredient.

XIII.  Sealing wax.  Recipe 1st.
    Take one pound of shell-lac, benjamin and black rosin, half an ounce each vermilion, eight drachms; the whole being melted, make your sticks on a marble table, rubbed over with oil of sweet almonds, and take care to have done before the was is cold.

XIV.  Another.  Recipe 2d.
    Take turpentine and sailor's pitch, six drachms of each; either shell lac, or dragon's blood, one; sulphur critinum, two.  Mix and incorporate all together over the fire, and form your sticks.

XV.  Another.  Recipe 3d.
    Take gum baderacea, shell-lac, sandarak of the ancients; otherwise printer's rosin, and mastich, two ounces of each, rosin, four ounces, turpentine, half an ounce.  Mix all in a very warm bell-metal mortar, and make your sticks.

XVI.  Another.  Recipe 4th.
    Take shell-lac and mastich, of each one ounce; dragon's blood, three; cinnabar, half an ounce; turpentine, one.  Mix all, and make your sticks.

XVII.  Another.  Recipe 5th.
    Take Greek pitch, one pound; white mastich, five; frankincense, five ounces; cinnabar, as much as you see requisite to give the red colour.  Put the pitch first on the fire to melt; next put the mastich, and the powder of frankincense; and last of all, the cinnabar grinded with a little oil.  Incorporate all well and take it from the fire, to make your sticks.

XVIII.  Another. Recipe 6th.
    Take shell-lac, twelve ounces; mastich and rosin, of each one ounce; dragon's blood, three; minimum, half an ounce.  Dissolve the shell-lac in vinegar; add if you will some turpentine oil and sulphur, to the quantity of four ounces of each, and two of ammoniac salt.  The whole being melted, make as fast as you can, your sticks of the form and size you like.

XIX.  Another.  Recipe 7th.  Excessively good.
    1.  Take shell-lac, etc. pound them all into a very fine and impalpable powder.  Then have two wooden pallets present upon them, before the fire some powder of one sort to melt, then move and stir it with the said pallets.  Take again of another powder in the same manner, and mix it in the same way before the fire with the first.  Then another and another, till they are all by this method, perfectly well amalgamated together.
    2.  Have now some cinnabar in powder, which put in a pan with water.  In that water and cinnabar powders, set to infuse, or only touch your incorporated gums, to make this composition take colour.  When thus sufficiently coloured, take it our of the water with both your hands and the wooden pallets, and have a person to help you.  Thus having wetted his hand, will draw some of the said gum, and handling it on a table, will form the sticks.  For two pounds of gums, two ounces of cinnabar are wanted.

XX.  Another.  Recipe 8th.
    Take gum-lac, four ounces, cinnabar, half an ounce, rosin, four and a half.  Melt the rosin with a little vinegar and skim it.  Then mix it with the lac and vermillion both well pulverised, and, when the composition begins to cool, form your sticks with it.

XXI.  An excellent sealing wax, by Giradot.  Recipe 9th.
    Put four ounces of rosin, and four and a half of whitening, and melt them together in a non-varnished pipkin, over kindled coals.  While this is in fusion, have another pot, similar to this, in which you keep two ounces of shell-lac, in dissolution with vinegar.  Now steep a wooden stick in the first pot, and another in the other pot; then, over a chafing dish, turn quickly, one over another, the ends of your two sticks together, to mix and incorporate well what matter they shall have brought along with them from each pipkin.  And after having turned them thus a reasonable time, you see both matters are well embodified, steep them, at different times, in the following liquor to colour them.

XXII.  A colour for the above wax.
    Grind upon a porphyry table, two ounces of cinnabar, with a sufficient quantity of nut-oil, to make it a liquid.  In this you dip your sticks at several times, and take care in dong it, the composition should not grow cold.  Wherefore you must each time you steep them in the colour, carry the again over the chafing dish to keep them in a due state of malleability.  And when you find the matter sufficiently tinged with red, form your sticks as usual, on a marble or well polished table.

XXIII.  To make sealing wafers.
    Take very fine flour, mix it with glair of eggs, isinglass, and a little yeast; mingle the materials; beat them well together, make the batter thin with gum water, and spread it even on tin plates, and dry it in stoves; then cut them for use.  You may make them what colour you please, by colouring the paste, say with Brasil, or Vermillion for red; Indigo etc. for blue, etc.

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