Secrets of Glass Manufactory - Compositions to Imitate Precious Stones, called French Paste

Secrets Concerning Colors and Painting
§ I.  Paint In Varnish On Wood
§ 2. Paint On Paper
§ 3. Compositions For Limners
§ 4. Make Transparent Color
§ 5. Compositions to Dye Leather
§ 6. Color or Varnish Copperplate Prints
§ 7. For Painting on Glass
§ 8. Color Preparation for Oil, Water, and Crayon
       Marble and Jasper Paper
       Methods to Clean Paintings
       Making Good Crayons
       Directions for Coloring Prints
       Directions for Painting in Oil
§ 9.  Preparation of Lapis Lazuli to Make Ultramarine

II.  To refine Pewter.
    Take fine Pewter, melt it in a crucible.  When done, project over it at several times some nitre till you see it calcined.  Then pound it into powder, and mix it with an equal quantity of charcoal pulverized very fine.  If in this condition you melt it again, it will resume its form of pewter, only refined in a much superior degree.

III.  Method of tempering edge-tools that are of too brittle a quality.
    Plunge them in boiling fat for two hours; then take them out, and let them cool gradually.  They will retain their hardness without being brittle.

IV.  To make Pewter.
    Melt together 1 cwt. Tin, 15 lb. Lead, and 6 lb. Brass, the whole forms what is called pewter.

V.  To make Pinchbeck.
    Melt one pound of Zinc, with five or six pounds of Copper; the purer these metals, the more malleable the pinchbeck.  Its colour much resembles gold.

VI.  On Zinc, or Spelter, and its various uses.
    Zinc combined with gold in equal proportions forms a hard white compound metal, that admits of a fine polish, and may be advantageously manufactured into specula for optical instruments.
    Zinc and Tin melted together, form a kind of pewter.
    Spelter and copper readily unite in the fire, provided the combustion of the former be carefully prevented during the process.  In this state, it forms a metal distinguished by the name of yellow copper; but which is divided into several sorts according to the respective proportions contained in the alloy.  Thus three parts of copper and one of zinc, constitute brass; five or six of copper and one of zinc, form pinchbeck; Tembac is composed of a still larger proportion of copper than pinchbeck, is of a deeper red, and bears the name of its inventor.  Princes metal requires a still larger proportion of zinc than either of the preceding compositions.

VII.  To make blue letters on polished sword blades.
    Take a well polished sword blade, and hold it over a charcoal fire till it is blue, then with oil colour write such letters, (or make such figures) as you wish should appear, and remain, and let them dry; then warm some strong vinegar, and pour all over the blade, which will infallibly take off the blue colour.  After this process, a little common warm water will take off the oil color, and the letters or figures will appear and remain of a curious and indelible blue, the same may be done on any polished steel.

VIII.  Method of giving a lustre to Silver.
   Dissolve a quantity of alum in water, so as to make a pretty strong brine, which you must scum very carefully; add some soap to it, and when you want to use it, dip a piece of linen rag in it, and daub it over your pieces of plate.  This process will add much to their lustre.

XI.  To extract Mercury from Lead.
    Take lead filings one pound; ammoniac salt four ounces; bricks pounded into a powder, three pounds. Distil this composition in a retort, on a gradual fire.  The receiver must be very large, half full of water, and the fire must be continued for twelve hours, pushing it by degrees, to the very last.

X.  To preserve the brightness of arms.
    Rub them with hart's marrow.  Or else, dissolve some alum powder with the strongest vinegar you can find, (that of Montpellier, which serves to make their famous verdigrease, is the fittest) and rub your arms with it.  By these means, they keep for ever bright and shining.

XI.  To operate the transmutation of iron into steel.
    Take beech and willow, burn them together.  When in coals, extinguish them, before they are consumed, with water, or rather, with chamber-lye.  Pound them well, and sift them through a very fine sieve.  The burn likewise ox horns, and prepare them the same way.  Sift well also soot, vine ashes, burnt shoe ashes, and pomegranate shell powder, putting aside and separately each drug by itself, and mix them afterwards, when used, in the following proportions.  Coals twelve pounds; horns ten; shoes, vine soot, and pomegranate, of each equal quantities three pounds all well mixed together.  To make one hundred pounds weight of steel, there is required one hundred and twenty pounds weight of good, soft Spanish iron, not streaky; to which if you give the aforementioned dose of the said powders, prepared as directed, and put to the fire, for the space of forty-eight hours, you will get the best steel which can be had.

XII.  Another receipt for the Same.
   1.  Take one bushel of beech coals pulverized and sifted; alder's coals, thus prepared, one peck; vine ashes and soot, both well pulverized and sifted, equal parts, half a peck.  Mix well these powders, and stratify your iron bars with them in a crucible well luted; then give a good fire for twenty-four hours.
    N.B.  Observe that you must take care to use new, and not floted wood, to make the said ashes.
    2.  If you want to have your steel white, you must add to all the above powders one peck of juniper wood ashes.
    3.  If you want it purple, you must make a lixiviation of vine and shoe ashes, soot and garlic, well pounded, equal parts; and a sufficient quantity of water to make the said bullitorium, in which you will steep, cold, your iron bars before you cement them.
    4.  You must proportionate the quantity of windholes, in each kiln, to the quantity of bars, and of crucibles, for which you intend to fit it.
    5.  The stratum super siratum ought to be made an inch, or an inch and a half thick of powder to each bed.  The bars ought to be ranged cross way one over another; and large crucibles are to be preferred to small ones. --You must take care to have them so well luted, as not to allow the least air to find its way in; for there would result an entire miscarriage of the whole operation; and besides, your powder would hence lose all its virtue. --Should you likewise let it get air before you make use of it, it would become quite dead and flat.  Therefore, you are cautioned to keep it always very closely confined, in well stopped vessels, of whatever kind they may be.  That which comes off from the crucible, after the operation, is not worse for having been thus in use.  It wants therefore, nothing but an additional supply of fresh powder joined to it, to make up what is lost or diminished, by the frequent handling of it, in taking it out, and putting it in the crucibles again.
    6.  The kiln ought to be wide by the inferior part, and go narrowly towards the top, which must end in a conical form.  By such means the heat contracted becomes strong, and acts with infinitely more power.  Neither must you neglect to have it so constructed as to be provided with an ash-hole, or a place underneath wherein the ashes may fall, and several openings to let the wind escape.

XIII.  To give iron a temper to cut porphyry.
    Make your iron red hot, and plunge it in distilled water from nettles, acanthus, and pilosella, (or mouse-ears) or in the very juice pounded out of these plants.

XIV.  To soften all sorts of metals.
    Take sublimated mercury, euphorbium, borax, and ammoniac salt, of each equal parts pulverised.  Project some of that powder over any metal, when in a state of fusion, and you will obtain the desired effect of making it soft.

XV.  A very hard temper for arms.
    Take nettle juice, bullock's gall, child's water, or strong vinegar and a little salt. Incorporate well all this together, and plunge any red-hot iron in it.

XVI.  Ingredients which serve to the melting of iron.
    Iron is to be melted with any of the following ingredients; viz. pewter, lead, marcasite, magnesia, auripigment, antimony, crown glass, sulphur, ammoniac salt, Citrine miribolans, green, or fresh pomegranate rinds, etc. etc.

XVII.  Another method to refine pewter.
    Take fine pewter, and put it into a crucible.  When melted project over it, at different times, some nitre, till it comes to a perfect calcination.  Repeat this three times, pounding the matter into powder, which mix with charcoal dust.   Being this malted, it will resume its former substance of pewter, with this difference, that it will be refined to an infinitely superior degree.

XVIII.  To fix Mercury.
    Take verdigrease in powder, which put in a crucible. Make a hole in that powder, and place in it a knot of mercury previously impregnated with white of eggs water.  Cover this knot over with borax, and add again over this some more verdigrease and pounded glass, one or two finger's deep.  Lute well the lid of the crucible, and give a pretty smart fire, though gradually and not at once, for the space of two hours.

XIX.  To extract mercury from lead.
    Take lead and beat it into sheets, or laminas, very fine.  Put these in a glass vessel with common salts, a double quantity of the lead.  Cover this well, and bury it under ground for nine days at least.  After that time, if you open the vessel again, you will find your lead turned all into running mercury, or quicksilver at the bottom of it.

XX.  The composition of metallic mirrors, or looking glasses, used among the ancients.
    1.  Take one pound of decapitated, or well purified copper, which melt, then throw over it three pounds of refined pewter.  As soon as they shall be both in good fusion, add six ounces of saltpetre, and two drachms of alum.  Leave all this in fusion together for the space of three or four hours, that all the salts may well evaporate, then cast this composition in the flat sand mould, prepared for it.
    2.  To give these mirrors the requisite polish, proceed as follows.  Take the coarsest part away with the wheel over a grinding stone, the same method as the pewterers and braziers do, and then smooth them with water till they are sufficiently polished by attrition.  Take the mirror from that wheel, and put it on the wooden one covered with leather, after having rubbed it well with emery, to give it a fine polish, the take it again from this wheel, and put it on another of the same kind, covered with leather, after having previously rubbed your mirror with prepared blood stone, and washing it afterwards with magister of pewter.  Take notice to make your mirrors observe, on both the last leathered wheels, the same oblique direction in turning them, and continue so long till the mirror has acquired a sufficient fineness and brightness.
    Convex and ardent mirrors are rubbed and polished in the same manner.

XXI.  To give tools such a temper as will enable them to saw marble.
    Make the tool red hot in the fire, and when red cherry colour, take it off from the fire, rub it with a piece of candle, and steep it immediately in good strong vinegar, in which you shall have diluted some soot.

XXII.  To soften iron, and harden it afterwards more than it was before.
    1.  Make a little chink lengthways in an iron bar, in which pour melted lead.  Then make it evaporate by a strong fire, at that for copelling.  Renew this operation four or five times, and the bar will become very soft.  You harden it afterwards in steeping it, when red hot, in mere forge water, and it will be of so good a temper, as to be fit for lancets, razors and knives, with which you will be able to cut other iron, without its splitting or denting.
    2.  It has been found by experience, that an armour can never be good proof against firearms, if it has not first been softened with oils, gums, wax and other incerative things, and afterwards hardened by steeping them several times over in binding waters.

XXIII.  The transmutation of iron into damask steel.
    You must first purge it of its usual brittleness; and after having reduced it into filings, make it red hot in a crucible; steep it several times in oil of olives, in which you shall have before thrown several times melted lead.  Take care to cover the vessel in which the oil is contained, every time you throw your steel into it, for fear the oil should catch fire.

XXIV.  To guard iron against rusting.
    Warm your iron till you can no more touch it without burning yourself.  Then rub it with new and clean white wax.  Put it again to the fire, till it has soaked in the wax.  When done, rub it over with a piece of serge, and this iron will never rust.

XXV.  To cut pebbles with ease.
    Boil it a good while in some mutton suet, and then you will cut it very easily.

XXVI.  A projection on copper.
    1.  Take fine pewter two ounces, which you will melt in a crucible.  When melted, throw in it by little at a time the same weight of flour of brimstone.  Stir every time with a rod, till you see both your pewter and sulphur well calcinated.  Then take the crucible out of the fire, and throw in half an ounce of crude mercury.  Let it cool, and pulverise this.
    2.  Now melt four ounces of molton copper.  When in good fusion, project on it, by degrees, one ounce of the above powder, stirring carefully, while you do it, with a stick.  Leave it thus in fusion for a  little while, and then you may use it for making all sorts of plates.  It is so beautiful, that, if you test it on the coppel with lead, it will stand it perfectly.

XXVII.  The preparations of emery.
    1.  Calcine eastern, or Spanish emery, three or four times in the fire; then let it cool.  Pound it and make strata super strata of it, with double the quantity of sulphur- ivum in powder.  Leave this crucible in the furnace with a strong fire during three or four hours.  Repeat this process four different times over, then reduce your emery into an impalpable powder.  Put it next into a matrass, pour over it regal water, that it swim over by three fingers deep.  Put this in digestion for eight hours.  Pour off by inclination your regal water, impregnated with the dye.  Put new water on your matter, and set it on digesting again for eight other hours, as the former.  Then take your thus tinged waters, which you will mix and put in a retort.  Distil most part of it, till you see what remains in the retort is yellow.  This is the true oil of emery, in which you put the bigness of a filbert of camphire.
    2.  Exsulphurate in a crucible, on a good fire, and during two hours, what quantity you please of arsenic.  Then take two ounces of the aforesaid oil of emery, one of your exsulphurated arsenic, and equal quantity of salt of tartar drawn with distilled vinegar, two of sublimate, and two of silver; which you will have dissolved in an aquafortis made with nitre and vitriol. Put all together in a matrass, so large that the composition should occupy no more than a third part of it, of which you shall have cut the neck off, to obtain a more easy evaporation of the compounds from it.  Put this matrass in the sand as high as the matter, and give it a moderate fire for two hours, then a strong one for six; let the fire go out of itself.  The you will find your matter in a stone in the matrass.  Take it out, and pound it into powder, projected upon another ounce of salt in fution; if you keep it a little while in that state, and throw it afterwards into oil of olives, will increase your gold by a third of its primary quality, and rather more:  And you may thus increase it again and again, by repeating the same operation.

XXVIII.  To dye in gold silver medals, or laminas, through and through.
    1.  This curious operation is performed by means of the admirable salt of Glauber, which is made with nitre and vitriol oil, in the following manner: -- Take what quantity you please of nitre salt, pour over it a sufficient quantity of oil of vitriol, to swim  over.  When the ebullitions arising from that mixture shall be ended, distil to dryness; there remains a white salt, known under the name of salt of Glauber.
    2.  Dissolve in what quantity of warm water you think proper, or be in need of, a sufficient quantity of that salt as may saturate it, which you know, when you see the water can dissolve no more of it.  In this dissolution put a dram of calx, or, cut small and thin, for twenty-four hours, over a very gentle fire.  At he end of that term you will find them thoroughly dyed gold colour, inside and outside.

XXIX.  To solder iron, or any other metal, without fire.
    1.  Take one ounce of ammoniac, and one of common salts; and equal quantity of calcined tartar, and as much of bell-metal, with three ounces of antimony.  Pound all together and sift it.  Put this into a piece of lined, and enclose it well all round with fuller's earth, about one inch thick.  Let it dry, then put it between two crucibles, over a slow fire, to get heat by degrees.  Push on the fire till the lump contained in the crucibles becomes quite red hot, and melt all together.  Then let the vessels, and the whole, cool gradually, and pound it into a powder.
    2.  When you want to solder any thing, put the two pieces you want to join on a table, approaching their extremities as near as you can one to another.  Make a crust of fuller's earth so, that holding to each piece, and passing under the joint, it should be open over it on the top.  Then throw some of your powder between and over the joint.  Have again some borax, which put into hot wine till this is consumed, and with a feather rub your powder at the place of the joint; you will see it immediately boiling.  As soon as the boiling stops, the consolidation is made.  If there be any roughness, you must smoothen it, by rubbing with a grinding stone, for the file will have no power over it.

XXX.  To solder with fire.
    Make a paste with pulverised chalk and gum water, which put around the two broken pieces placed on a table, and prepared as before-mentioned in the preceding receipt.  The only difference is, that you are to rub over the two united extremities with melted soap; and, after having thrown some of the above powdered at the place of the joint, hold a kindled piece of charcoal over it.  This will immediately set the matter in fusion, which is no sooner done, but you may take off the paste, and you will find it consolidated.

XXXI.  To make borax.
    Take two ounces of roch-alum, dilute it, and mix it with two ounces of alkaline salt, which is used in the making of glass.  Put all into a pewter pot, and set it a-doing, for the space of half an hour, over a gentle fire; then take it out of the water.  Take next two ounces of gem salt in powder, as much of alkaline salt, two pounds of virgin honey, and one of cow milk.  Mix well all together and set it in the sun for three days.  Then the borax is done.

XXXII.  To render iron as white and beautiful as silver.
    Take ammoniac salt in powder, and mix it with an equal quantity of quick lime.  Put them all together into cold water, and mix well.  When done, any iron piece, which you shall have made red hot. will, if you steep it in that prepared water, become as white as silver.

XXXIII.  To calcine pewter, and render it as white and as hard as silver.
    Melt well your pewter in a crucible, so that it may be very fine and clear.  Pour it afterwards into a very strong vinegar, then into mercurial water.  Repeat that operation as many times as you please, you will each time give it an additional degree of hardness and whiteness, drawing near to silver; so much, that it will at last be very difficult to distinguish it from silver itself.

XXXIV.  To whiten brass.
    Brass, copper, iron or steel, may also be easily whitened by means of the butter from Cornwall tin, or pewter, prepared with sublimate, proceeding as follows.
    Take Cornwall pewter, about one pound; add to it half that quantity of sublimate.  Set it on a strong fire, and sublime.  Throw away the first water.  The second is good, which you know by its white colour.  Now, if you make a piece of copper, brass, steel, or iron, it does not signify which, red hot, and steep it in that water, it will become as white as silver.

XXXV.  To extract gold from silver.
    1.  Melt whatever quantity you please of lead, in a crucible, over a fire of clear and bright live-coals.  Have at the same time in fusion an equal quantity of sulphur. Then take your first crucible, in which the lead is melted, off from the fire; and, before the lead shall congeal, throw in the same quantity in weight of quicksilver.  Stir and mix well this with a stick.  When this is done, pour your sulphur, from the other crucible, over the mixture of lead and quicksilver you have just made, and which coagulates, continually stirring carefully the matter with a spatula, for fear the sulphur should blaze and be consumed, before it is all poured in.  When the whole is come quite cold, grind it on a marble table with a mullar.  Then put all again into a crucible over the fire, and leave it in fusion till all the sulphur is burnt out, and the matter be fluid enough to be cast in an ingot.  This will look like the regulus of melted antimony.  It will have even its brittleness.
    2.  Reduce this composition into powder, and, with an equal quantity in weight of it and of silver laminas, make strata super strata of them, alternately, in a crucible, beginning and ending always with the powder.  Then over the last bed, put about half an inch thick of Venetian glass, or crystal, reduced into an impalpable powder.  Observe however that the crucible should not be filled so near the brim as to let the glass boil over.  Make a fire strong enough to melt both the matters and the glass, and set them thus in fusion all together for an hour at least.  Then take off, and let cool, your regulus; in breaking your crucible, make a coppel, or test, in which you will put lead in fusion, till it is as fluid as it can be.  Throw in your rugulus to purify it by that test, in the same manner as silver-smiths do.  When your silver shall be fallen to the bottom very pure, put in laminas, or granulate it; then put it to dissolve in aquafortis.  You will see some small particles of fine gold precipitating from it, in the form of black powder.  Wash these in warm water, then put them in fusion, in a crucible, and you will have true pieces of good gold, fit for any of the chymical physics, and capable to stand any test.

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