Fasten these with glue and screws; or, better still, by adding to both two sliding, tightly fitting ring-tubes, or one long one. This will actually make the stick stronger than it was at first. The rings should be covered with paper, glued, and then painted and varnished.

The processes of glueing and screwing are applicable to most fractures of furniture. Where a piece of wood is broken away, it, or a similar piece, must be inserted. When wood is warped it may be straightened by applying wet towels. Observe that if a flat panel is warped thus—

you must wet the upper or concave side, put it under heavy weight, and as soon as it becomes straight, screw it down with transverse strips. Drawers which are made from badly seasoned wood are a grief to the heart. They warp and stick. When you find that such is the case you can save yourself much annoyance by examining them, planing away the obstructions, and nailing transverse strips of wood across; that is to say, pieces in which the grain of the strip crosses that of the wood. Very good and well-seasoned English furniture often warps badly in India; therefore it should be thus protected. This can in most cases be better done with strips of metal. In large wardrobes, presses, or chests, where there are broad and often thin panels, this precaution should always be taken. As I write I have just seen two exquisitely painted and valuable pictures on panel, one of which had curved and split in two, while the other was badly warped for want of such a precaution, which would have cost only a penny’s worth of strip and screws and half-an-hour’s work to save them.

It will very often happen in mending furniture that neither nail, glue, nor screw can be relied on. In such case bore with a suitable gimlet and pass wire through the hole. Flexible wire twisted in two strands, with the ends properly secured, say to the head of a screw, all being sunk beneath the level, will hold almost anything.

Frames for looking-glasses or pictures often “spring” at the joints. In such cases a screw with acidulated glue will make them permanently strong.

Always put handles to drawers. The vile invention or device of using the key for a handle is by far too common. Metallic handles of brass are preferable to wooden knobs. Keys are often lost, or else break. The bottom of a drawer should always be secured by screws.

When the bottom of a drawer, as frequently happens, shrinks and becomes too short, so that there is a long opening, the latter should be filled with a strip of wood. The chief cause why modern furniture is apt to become loose or separate is chiefly due to its being made either of unseasoned or soft wood, such as weak deal or poplar, which absorbs moisture from the air and then dries and shrinks, or because it is made of too many pieces only glued together, and that with cheap, bad glue.

Restoring Decayed Wood.—The worst cases of decay or of worm-eaten wood can be perfectly restored in this manner:—Take fine sawdust of the same kind of wood as the original. Let it be as fine as possible, either cut with a refined saw or powdered in a mortar. Sift it. Then with acidulated glue, or else plain, clear, white Salisbury glue for light wood, make a paste, well mixed. With this you can fill up holes (using a spatula or flexible knife or ivory paper-knife). But, what is more, you can thus make a very strong artificial wood which can be moulded into any form, and when dry polished by cutting over the surface with a chisel or flat gouge, and using a file or glass-paper to finish. In fact, you can mould or model figures with this wood-paste by itself. Putty is generally used for such repairs, but the wood-paste is like wood, and quite as durable.

If you have a mould of plaster of Paris, boil it in oil, clean it, and then oil it. With the wood-paste you can make ornaments which can be applied to plain wood surfaces.

Splints, fractures, cracks, holes, corners broken away, are all easily restored with wood-paste. In moulding it the fingers should be oiled to prevent its sticking.

Any kind of dry sawdust can thus be converted into a paste, which, when dry, becomes wood. It may be very much hardened under a hydraulic-press or by a wooden hand-roller. Housekeepers should use this composition for filling up rat-holes, or any kind of crevices in furniture, or panels, or doors and walls, especially where such cracks harbour insects.

It would be perfectly possible to construct an entire house of such wood-cement, and one which would be perfectly durable, or even more so than wood, since beams and planks thus made never crack, split, nor warp. With it the boldest vaulting and arch work can be more easily made than in stone or with wood, as the latter is usually worked. As builders in Turkey form domes by making circles of clay or mud, and gradually add to the first a smaller one, so by using wood-paste the largest space could be covered or domed over without building a scaffolding. There are many places in the world where (as in the prairies of America, Russia, and Hungary) large timber is wanting, but where small wood for sawdust is more available, and yet where, as cattle abound, glue would be very cheap. This material deserves more serious attention than it has ever received.

More than twenty years after I had invented, or at least projected and put in practice, this method of making artificial wood, I found the following in the Manuel Général du Modelage, par F. Goupil; Paris, Le Bailly:—

“To make vases, take fine dry sawdust and pass it through a sieve. It may be made into a paste with a compound of turpentine, resin, and wax. Or mix the adhesive with five parts of best strong white glue (colle de Flandre) to one part of fish-glue. Melt them separately, ... pour them together, boil to a proper consistency, and mix with the sawdust. By this process figures can be cast which, when finished by hand, exactly resemble carved wood.”

Another recipe is to take 750 grammes of strong glue to 1½ kilogramme of gall nuts. To be mixed cold. Mix in hot water with sawdust.

Since writing the foregoing I have found the following recipe in a MS. of 1780, a family heirloom kindly lent me by Miss Roma Lister:—

“To cast Wood in Moulds as fine as Ivory, of a fragrant Smell, and indifferent Colours.—Dry Lime Tree wood sawdust in a pan by a gentle fire, and beat it to a fine powder in a stone mortar. Sift it through Cambric, and keep it in a dry place free from dust. Then add to an equal quantity of Gum Tragacanth and Gum Arabic 4 times the quantity of Parchment Glue. Boil them in Pump Water, and filter through Linen. Stir into it the Wood powder till it becomes of the substance of a thick pastry; stir it all together, and set it in a glazed pan in hot sand, for the moisture to evaporate till it be fit for casting. Mix your colours with the Paste, and to give it a Scent put Oil of Cloves or Roses or the like, which, if you please, you may mix with powdered Amber. Anoint the mould with Oil of Almonds, and put your paste into it. Let it dry for 4 or 5 days, then take off your mould, and the Images will be as hard as Ivory. You may cut, turn, carve, and plane this wood, and it will have a fine scent. The mould may be Plaster of Paris, but it were better made of metal.”

I would add to this, that where heavy pressure or hand-rolling can be applied this becomes really hard. Also note that any light, dry wood of fine texture can be dried and powdered for this purpose. The paste, even with common fine glue, can be used for very fine repairing. By sifting and pulverising, the dust may be made as fine as flour. A little calcined and powdered glass adds to its strength.

To make panels for furniture, walls, or boxes, take firstly a thin panel of seasoned wood, fasten two strips of sheet-tin across the back to prevent warping, and make or apply the cast to this. Very beautiful work can thus be produced very cheaply.

It may be here observed that this principle of mixing a powdered substance with glue or gum or an adhesive runs through all the arts of mending. The powder of cocoa-nut shells, slate, of paper, plaster of Paris, of leather, clay, lime, fine sand, and many other substances, can all be combined with adhesives, acids, or chemical solvents in such a manner as to form what may be called generically cements, or substances, or pastes, which become hard. Any glue or gum, or liquid which will make two surfaces adhere, can be mixed with most organic or inorganic hard substances in powder so as to form a paste which, when dry, forms a solid, hard substance, because the grains of the powder are thereby cemented together. Most of these yield to the action of water, but there are a few which resist both water and fire, all of which will be described in this work.

Broken ebony can be filled in cracks with a very neat and dainty paste or cement made as follows:—Take dried rose-leaves, or any others as soft, steep them in just enough water to soften them, add of gum-tragacanth and gum-arabic just enough to make a paste, and sufficient ivory black to give it an ebony colour. Macerate the whole in a mortar. In the East a few drops of otto of roses or of geranium are added. From this heads are made, also medallions, or any other small objects. The composition sets very hard, and much resembles ebony. I have made many small objects of it myself, and can testify to its excellence. It is in this manner that the black rosaries from Constantinople are made.

A very good cement for filling cracks in furniture or other woodwork is made as follows:—One part of finely powdered resin and two parts of yellow wax are melted together, and to this is added two parts of finely pulverised ochre, or other suitable colouring earthy substance. This is an excellent cement in all respects, except that it yields to great heat. For all such repairing sawdust and glue is much to be preferred.

In repairing furniture, remember the screws hold much more firmly if they are just dipped in boiling beeswax or turpentine. If you are not accustomed to screwing or nailing, just make a hole with a brad-awl, else you will find the screw or nail going out of the side of the box, or in some other undesired direction.

Clamps, or pieces of wood connected by screws, ties, or elastic bands, are indispensable in much glueing pieces together. They are, however, easily made. A good clamp can be made by bending over the two ends of a strong piece of wire. Hammer the ends into the wood.

Glue is more elastic when mixed with a little glycerine. This should be borne in mind when mixing glue with sawdust to form artificial wood, and, in fact, in many manufactures and combinations where it is specially desirous to have a certain degree of toughness or flexibility in the object made.

To utilise waste matter is allied to mending, which is only preventing waste. For this purpose common wood-shavings may be used for a pretty art. Take good shavings of any wood, and after moistening them with glue or gum tragacanth and arabic, press them flat. Trim them with scissors into leaves, or make them into flowers, and attach them together. Then pour over them liquid plaster of Paris, in which there is gum-arabic and alum dissolved. Take a bush, or plant without leaves, and gum the leaves to it or to its twigs. Cover bare places with the gypsum. When dry varnish the whole. A Professor Heigelin, in Stuttgart, once had an exhibition of such work. Frames can be decorated in this manner. Paint, gilding, and enamel, or bronze powders, can, of course, be applied. Shavings combined with weak glue submitted to pressure form artificial wood or boards, which can be improved by further combination with waste-paper. Made with a solution of alum it is fireproof. Its strength will be in proportion to the pressure applied. It can often be employed in repairing when suitable wood is wanting, and has the advantage that it can be turned to any shape.

The reader can easily satisfy himself by experiment that these artificial woods made from sawdust or shavings, combined with adhesives, are very easy to manufacture, very cheap, and, when properly made, extremely strong. When strong pressure or rolling can be applied, the quantity of adhesive may be diminished. Linen or muslin rags, cotton-wool, or any textile fabric can be added to the shavings, as well as waste-paper of all kinds. Anything fibrous or stringy will aid in the binding.

This subject may be studied in detail in a work entitled Die Verwerthung der Holtzabfälle—The rendering valuable of Refuse-Wood, such as Shavings, Refuse Dye-Wood, &c., showing how they may be converted to Artificial Wood, Fuel, Chemicals, Explosives, &c.—by Ernst Hubbard; Vienna, price 3 marks.

Wood of all kinds is in America sawed into such thin veneers that they are used to serve as wall-paper, being attached with paste. When damp they bend like paper. Such veneer is very useful for repairing wooden surfaces.

Common putty is not always to be trusted in for repairing wood. It sometimes shrinks, and is never very hard. The glue with glycerine and sawdust or cocoa-nut dust is preferable.

“Scratches and chance cuts may be remedied by merely melting or washing and rubbing in with cold water. But for most small defects a filler is used. This is a kind of paint or liquid cement, the object of which is to fill up the pores of certain coarse woods and make the surface fine. Soft wax, flour, and varnish are used for this purpose.”

Any dealer in paints and varnishes will supply a filler for any special work.

Staining or colouring wood is an important part of repairing. “Oiling alone is a kind of colouring, for all oiled wood becomes much darker in a short time.”2

Soda dissolved in water gives to oak wood a much darker tone. Dark tea and alum is also useful, and still better very strong coffee. Also porter or beer mixed with umber. Also a decoction of walnut-leaves boiled down. In using these or any other colours the following rules must be strictly observed:—(1.) Use a sponge or brush, and do not apply the dye freely or pour it on, as you will run great risk of warping the wood or making it split. (2.) Exercise the greatest care in drying it near a fire. (3.) Do not expect to colour all at once by a profuse application. However light the colour may seem, always when it is dry rub off the colour with a rag or chamois-skin, and then make a second wash. This process will make the dye strike in deeper and last longer.

Stevens’ Stains, also those of Mander, are very good and strong. They generally require dilution.

Ammonia is much used to give wood a dark rich colour. Wood thus treated, if afterwards exposed to the smoke of a wood fire, assumes a very ancient appearance. Bichromate of potash with water is a good dark dye, but it must be carefully handled, as it is very poisonous and injurious to clothing. It is used to give a waterproof quality to certain cements.

Good writing-ink is a very good black dye. When it is quite dry, oil, rub, and polish it, and the ink will resist a great deal of wetting.

It should be remembered that with ink, as with dyes, there should always be at least two applications, and that the first should be very thoroughly dried, if possible, in a strong light, though not in sunshine, before the second is laid on. Three coats of blackest ink well dried in, then rubbed in well, and finally oiled, form an almost waterproof cover.

When panels of marquetry or of inlaid wood of different colours are broken away or require to be replaced, it can be done in the following manner:—Take a panel of very firm fine white wood—holly is the best; next to it Swiss or German larch—draw on it your pattern, and then with a penknife go over all the pattern, cutting into the panel about a quarter of an inch, or rather less—in no case far enough to cut through. Then carefully fill all these lines with a firm cement, and let it dry well. Then with a dye—not with paint—color each piece appropriately. The cement and lines will prevent the dye from spreading from piece to piece. This is known as Venetian marquetry. When finished, apply Soehnée varnish, and rub down very carefully by hand. It is a very beautiful and easy work, not to be distinguished when well done from real inlaying. Very cheap and plain old furniture can be easily made very elegant by having panels, &c., of this work applied. The reader may begin with a small box or three-legged stool, working directly on the wood, and will then probably be encouraged to proceed. Dark brown patterns on light yellow wood look well.

This work is very easy and elegant, very little made, and may be therefore profitable. Any kind of light or white wood, such as deal or pine, may be used for common decoration. Cheap violins and guitars are sometimes made into handsome ornaments for rooms by this process. For designs for this purpose consult the Manuals of Design, Wood-Carving, and Leather-Work, by the Author (Whittaker & Co., No. 2 White Hart Street, London, E.C.).

Marquetry may also be mended by making and colouring wood-paste, in which case prepare the ground with great care, by roughening, to hold the glue; also by using coloured cements, such as bread, well worked with powder and glycerine-glue.

It does not seem to occur to many people—even to those living in the country—that there is a great deal of strong, plain, useful furniture which can be easily made at home at no very great expense, boards of good quality being cheap enough. With a few lessons from an expert, or even with the study of a good elementary manual of cabinetmaking, any amateur can succeed. Whoever can make a good box can make an antique chair, and this can, however plain, be carved, stained, or marquetried into beauty; but let him beware of sawed curves.

Where there are worms in furniture or other wood, they should always be very promptly exterminated, else they will destroy it in time. To remove them, dissolve 2 drachms of corrosive sublimate in 2 oz. of methylated spirit and 2 oz. of water, to be applied freely with a feather or brush. This is an unfailing remedy; but the mixture is poisonous, and therefore should be kept labelled out of harm’s way (Work, Sept. 1892).

In restoring or repairing woodwork we must have some knowledge not only of paints, varnishes, putties, and filling, but also of agents which prevent organic change or are applicable to peculiar accidents. One of the principal of these is known as knotting. Its properties and general nature are freely explained in the following article from The Decorator, Sept. 1892:—

“‘Knotting,’ or, as it is usually written, Patent Knotting, is a quick-drying, semi-transparent fluid. It is made from naphtha and shellac; hence its quick-drying nature. The knots of woodwork, especially pine, contain much resin, which gradually exudes from the surface. This resin will speedily darken, and ultimately destroy, the covering film of oil paint with which woodwork is usually coated. The object of coating knots in woodwork with ‘patent knotting composition’ is to seal up, so to term it, the resin. In the earlier history of house-painting processes a mixture of red lead and strong glue-size, applied warm, was often used. The chief point in view is to stop the ‘cause,’ but without objectionable ‘effect;’ therefore the thinnest perceptible covering—so long as it is effectual—is the best. The patent knotting of commerce is the article now generally purchased and used. The knots are given one or two bare coatings—according to the nature of the knot, and the conscience of the workman. The best knotting is the colour of dark oak varnish; the worst is the blackest and dirtiest-looking. It always pays to have the best knotting, since ‘black knotting’ requires an extra coat of paint to cover the dark patches which ‘grin through’ any light tints. For the best work it is usually advisable—especially when the woodwork has to be finished, and perhaps hand-polished, in ‘ivory-white’ enamel—to have the knots cut out with a chisel or gouge, then fill up with lead ‘filling-up’ in distemper. I recently had to have the door of an elaborately decorated drawing-room so treated, since, despite being fresh knotted, the resin began to discolour the work, which had received some six coats of paint and enamel, ere the room was furnished—a very annoying and costly matter. Very occasionally knots are gilded over with best gold-leaf; this is generally conceded to be an effectual plan to adopt, when gouging is not resorted to, for finest work. Knotting woodwork is, therefore, not an insignificant detail of house-painting, especially when we are dealing with a door-side; that alone, when finished in hand-polished enamel, may cost a ten-pound note to produce. ‘Tin-paint’ will do for common priming; good linseed oil is the chief element required. All new woodwork requires three coats of good lead and oil paint before standing any time—viz., priming and two after-coats. This is known as ‘builders’ finish.’ When permanently decorated it usually requires ‘getting up’ to a proper surface, and two or three more coats.”

It is sometimes an advantage to “gouge”—i.e., to cut—out a bad knot and fill the cavity with wood, wood-paste, or carton-pierre.

A very beautiful stain can be given to wood by rubbing it with nitric or sulphuric acid, and exposing it to the heat of a fire. In this way American hickory can be made to look like rosewood. Pine becomes red, which grows darker with increased heat.

Mending Furniture.—There is but one rule for repairing creaky chairs and tables with loose legs. They must be carefully taken apart, which can be done with chisels, a knife, and hammer, and then glued and screwed or put together again as they were originally made. The old-fashioned rounds or rungs of chairs, now so seldom seen, were a great aid to strength and durability.

I have already remarked that when a drawer in a bureau table is troublesome by continually sticking or catching, take it out, find where it rubs, and plane away the obtrusive portion. If it is made of badly seasoned, green, warping wood, nail across it strips of tin. To which I add that doors of closets, cabinets, &c., which are shrunk must have strips of wood glued to their edges. In some cases strips of paper will do as a temporary substitute.

It is no exaggeration whatever to declare that two or three centuries ago the slight and trashily made article of furniture was a great exception, while at the present day it is the well-made, durable article which forms the rarity—to the great shame, be it said, firstly, of all furniture-makers, and, secondly, to fashionable “taste,” which prefers slightness to strength.

This trashy and flimsy lightness is vastly to the profit of the cabinetmaker, since he can thus utilise the cheapest and smallest pieces of worthless wood by turning them into supports for light étagères or shelves, cross-backs and legs of spider-like little chairs, and all parts of small curved sofas, which are to be duly puttied, French polished, or completely hidden in velveteen or rep. It is not unusual to see what is considered a handsomely furnished room in which there is not one absolutely well-made or strong article which would bear careful examination or turning up. It is a pitiful sight indeed to see a load of such furniture on its way from the cabinetmakers, or the mill where it is sawed out by steam, to the place where it is to be veneered or painted, glazed, and clothed into elegance. The pieces of refuse pine wood and American greenish-yellow poplar stuck together with glue, and as few short nails as possible, look so shammy and shabby! I have wondered, in beholding them, at the marvellous boldness of their makers, who could deliberately calculate the time that such stuff would endure before its débacle. And as it is all destined to be broken and mended sometime or other, it is the more necessary that the art of repairing should be studied. Unfortunately, badly seasoned deal cannot be repaired into well-seasoned oak. Yet he who will take the pains to ascertain the price of the latter will be amazed to learn that so few people have it made into good, solid, strong furniture. “It is not there that the expense comes in.” If the reader, having some sense or taste in art, would make his own furniture, employing an assistant at six shillings a day to do the rough sawing and planing, he would find that he could have strong, substantial furniture; and if he would add to this so much knowledge of panel-carving as he could acquire in a few lessons, he might make it beautiful.

A cement for wood is made as follows:—

This is carefully worked into a thickish milk-like mass. It may be used as a glue for wood or as a paste for paper. It admits of many modifications. To make a very good waterproof cement for wood, as well as other purposes, take this cement when it shall have hardened, or after it has been applied, and wash it over frequently with a very strong extract of gall-apples. This forms, according to Lehner, an insoluble union with caseine.

A cement much employed in China to combine and make woodwork, basket-work, pasteboard, &c., waterproof is made as follows:—

This is commended as being very strong and durable. It is probable that a slight increase of the alum in solution, or an addition of strong infusion of gall-apples, would improve it.

A water-proof cement for wooden casks is made as follows:—

Boil together for ten minutes. This cement must not be brought into connection with lye (Lehner).

A good, strong, cheap cement for joining wood with metal or stone is made with

While the glue is soft stir into it the wood-ashes in greater or lesser quantity, according to their quality and fineness, till a syrupy mass is formed. Clay can also be combined with this mixture to make casts.

Common peat of fine quality (for there are different kinds or degrees of it), carefully cleaned from sticks and fibres, combined with common glue infused freely with nitric acid, submitted to strong pressure, is said to form a valuable substitute for wood, which may be used not only for repairing, filling chinks in trees, making up decayed timber, &c., but also to form blocks and planks.

I have elsewhere mentioned that shavings are utilised in Germany. Combined with glue, infused with glycerine, and submitted to pressure, they form boards which are even less brittle than many which are in ordinary use. The peculiar advantage of this artificial timber is the limitless length of the boards which can be thus made, which is often a great desideratum in flooring, or indeed in any building where piecing should be avoided. A canoe can thus be made on another as mould, in which case the shaving-cement is to be hardened by rollers. There is a book on this subject, elsewhere mentioned.

It may be observed that, as long and broad timber becomes every year more rare and valuable, artificial timber from smaller plants must certainly take its place.

Whitewash for wood is rendered more durable and glossy by the addition of liquid glue, well stirred in. It is still further improved by the addition of milk. This lasts so much longer than common wash that it is in the end perhaps ten times as cheap. When well made it has been known, when applied to the exterior of certain Government buildings in Washington, U.S.A., to last for seven years. If colouring matter, such as umber, be added, let the latter be mixed separately with the glue, and very thoroughly, before it is joined to the lime. The addition of a few eggs to the mixture will improve it. The lime prepared with the following forms a still better and stronger wash, which is well worth the extra expense:—

The varnish, while hot, is mixed with the boiling glue, and it is to be used at once. This is (Lehner) useful to coat and caulk casks, especially those in which such fluids as highly rectified spirits of wine are carried. Be it observed that the hotter the mixture is when applied the more deeply does it penetrate, yet the less is in the end required.

A good cement for carpenters:—

Woodwork which is to be under water or much exposed to rain may be cemented with the following:—

The powder must be well mixed by shaking, and, just before use, to be mixed with water.

The following may be used for JOINTS IN TIMBERS, holes and cracks, or for covering the surfaces, as it is an excellent protective against wet. It may also be used for stone, &c.:—

Work this to a paste with dissolved soda. Modifications of this combination of soda with iron and brick-dust will readily occur to all who have carefully studied this work.

A cement for wood:—

To which burnt umber or similar powder may be added at discretion. This cement dries slowly, but becomes very hard. It is good for filling cracks, holes, &c.

French glue for wood:—

Sawdust, as I have explained, from my own conjecture and experiment, can be combined with cements so as to form an artificial wood, which can be easily moulded or carved, and with which all kinds of worm-eaten and decayed wood can be restored. I find that for this purpose Lehner gives the following:—

“Take the finest sawdust and combine it with linseed-oil varnish, kneading the mass very carefully.”

This, when properly combined and worked, would form a very good artificial wood. It may be here observed, that because the experimenter finds at a first trial that the wood is too brittle or too hard, he is not to conclude that the recipe is good for nothing. Thus, to prepare it with, glue we should take—

First boil the glue very carefully, and stir into it the finest wood-dust or cocoa-nut shell powder. The quality will be improved if the latter has already been steeped for some time in a strong solution of oak-bark or gall-apples in spirit, or, instead of the latter, water. This disposes the dust to amalgamate with the glue. Stir the whole thoroughly. A commoner or coarser preparation for simply repairing is made by combining plaster of Paris, glue in watery solution, and sawdust. Common bone-dust, plaster of Paris, and glue make a good cement for light wood-dust. With a little glycerine it can be used for moulding. Add a little pipeclay, and if the bone-dust be very fine the surface will take a very high polish. Finish with oil and hand rubbing. This composition combines well with perfectly softened and macerated paper—not merely soaked—to form panels, which, however, to make them hard, should be pressed or rolled.

Cements for deals or boards of soft wood:—

I.

II.

For splits in trees, or fractures in the bark:—

The resin is first melted, the turpentine then stirred in, then the tallow, and finally the spirits.

I have spoken of artificial wood as chiefly made of sawdust combined with a binder such as glue. There are, however, strictly speaking, other kinds. The first of these is made from cellulose, which is disintegrated wood which still retains its fibre. It was discovered, I believe, by accident, in New York about thirty years ago. A stick, which fitted tightly, had been left in a cannon, when the latter was fired off. The result was that the stick was converted into a pulpy, fibrous mass, which was found to be admirable as a material for making paper. This, combined with glue, makes good boards.

Bark of different kinds is also combined in powder with glue to make wood. In all of these mixtures, where it is desirable to avoid brittleness or hardness, there must be an admixture of oil or glycerine. There is generally about 20/100 of the latter to 80/100 of sawdust, but the proportion varies according to the degree of elasticity or hardness required. To make boards the mixture is passed under heavy rollers, and when dry it is further treated with alum in solution, or tanner’s infusion of oak-bark, to make it waterproof. This is not necessary for ordinary work or repair.

To imitate Cedar.—Take any white wood and boil it for several hours in the following mixture:—

This penetrates very deeply into any wood. It is a very good protective.

To prepare Wood for Paint.—When you have a board or box, &c., however rough, and of any kind of inferior wood, first smooth the surface, if possible by planing, or else with a rasp and glass-paper. Fill all the holes and chinks with putty, or bread and gum, or gum and plaster of Paris. Then, with a mixture of glue (not too stiff) and fine white plaster of Paris, rub over all the surface to perfect smoothness, and when quite dry remove any irregularities with finest glass-paper. Then paint as desired. This is an approved method of repairing old panel pictures, which were all made with such a ground of plaster and glue.

To repair Marquetry or Inlaid Woodwork.—This, as I have already said, and will now describe more in detail, is made of different pieces of coloured wood, glued on a panel. Take a piece of fine hard wood, such as holly, and saw it out to exactly fit the place where pieces are missing. Draw the pattern on it, and then outline it very neatly with a fine pen-knife-point, so as to cut a little way into the wood, but not through it. Fill up this line thus cut with a composition of varnish and any black powder. Then with dyes, not oil paint or water-colour, but such as are made with spirit, colour the pattern, a separate colour to every piece. The dye will sink in and grow pale; then apply it again, and till it is of the hue desired. Polish the whole. This is what is called Venetian marquetry. It is, very easy to make, and produces beautiful results, quite equal to the sawed-out and inlaid work. It is, moreover, much more durable and far less expensive. Mander’s dyes are used for such staining.

Even a single inlaid figure of wood, set into a panel, as in the back of a chair, gives a character, and apparently greater value, to the whole. Such inlaying is easily made with a fret-saw. If we take two thin plates of wood, one dark and one light, and saw the same pattern out of both, we can then set one into the other, and so make two inlays by one process. Parquetry is large inlaying for floors. For this it is well to study such forms as can be set together, as, for instance, squares, diamonds, crosses, T’s and the like.

Violins, guitars, and lutes can be beautifully adorned by the Venetian process. As the colours do not wear away, and cannot scale off like common inlaying, it will be seen that it is by far the best way to decorate them. Furniture of all kinds can be ornamented in the same way. It is peculiarly appropriate to picture-frames. It being very little known, objects thus prepared meet with a ready sale.

When a corner of a pane in a window, as often happens—as also to the glass of a picture-frame or mirror—is broken away, we can easily make or have made a small ornament which will fit into the corner and conceal the defect, This can be made of wood, papier-mâché (which is best), or hard putty or cement. It may be gilded or painted. Windows may be prettily ornamented in this manner, even if not broken.

ON REPAIRING AND RESTORING BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS, AND PAPERS
WITH DIRECTIONS FOR EASY BINDING AND PAPER-MENDING—BOOK-WORMS

It happens often enough that some valuable old manuscript or early printed work, if not destroyed as useless, is sold for a trifle because it is torn and worm-eaten or otherwise injured. The loss to literature from this cause has been terrible, and it is all the more so because in most cases it was the result of sheer ignorance.

Paper is a composition of linen, cotton, or other vegetable fibre reduced to powder and then combined with size, which is a kind of glue, paste, or binding medium. Therefore paper can be mended by using, in the soft, macerated, or pasty form, paper itself—which very simple fact appears to have been hitherto a secret from the greater portion of mankind. That is to say, having a piece of paper with a small round hole in it—looking as if some one had fired a shot through it—take another piece of paper of the same quality and reduce some of it to a very fine powder or mash it fine with a knife, combine it with good flour-paste infused with a little clear white glue, and make a soft paste with the powder; then, laying a porcelain tile or piece of tin under the sheet, with a hole in it, to prevent sticking, spread the paste, which is really soft paper, with a knife over the hole. When dry it will be mended permanently. Observe that the pulp must be a fine paste, not merely paper mixed with paste—i.e., lumpy and stringy, but soft. Secondly, that a better “binder” or size than flour-paste is one made from scraps of parchment boiled, till all the gelatine is extracted. Take the latter and let it boil till thick. It makes a finely glazed surface.

Do not begin to do this with a book, but with a sheet out of which holes have been punched. It is delicate work, and you must not expect to succeed in it at once. But in time, with care, you will remake the paper with great skill. There are workmen who can even reunite torn edges in this manner so that the mending is almost imperceptible. This is remaking paper with paper. In some cases it will suffice to simply neatly paste a piece of paper over a torn-away space. This may be done—as in most cases—very clumsily, or it may be performed artistically and daintily. In the latter case, using a very sharp and specially thin bladed penknife, shave down or scrape away the overlapping edge, and apply the paste sparingly with the point of a camel’s-hair small brush. Before it is quite dry lay the leaf on a smooth, hard surface, and with the penknife or a burnisher flatten down the thinned edge to an uniform surface. This also requires a little practice, but when learned the artist may effect miracles of restoration. One may, and that not infrequently, buy for shillings books which when mended sell for many pounds.

It often happens that we find some curious little old book which has been sadly cut or worn, almost down to the type. Take it, and with a flat rule carefully cut out every page, leaving just a little rim of margin. Then having obtained old paper corresponding to your text, or good modern hand-made Dutch, using strong glue-paste or flour and gum-arabic, or paper-paste, make borders, on which paste the old pages. If you have old paper—there are dealers who can supply it—you may do this so well that the juncture will be hardly perceptible. In any case you will greatly enhance the value of the book. In this, as in all such work, never attempt to restore anything of value till you shall have succeeded by experimenting. This is very seldom done, and yet books thus restored sell for a price which must make the work very profitable. One reason, however, why we see so little of it is the extravagant price charged for all such work by the agent who supplies it.

The prices paid for books thus restored and mounted are extremely high, simply because there are so few people who know how to do it well; and yet, as any of my readers may find, the art is an easy one, requiring only neatness and care. There are very few libraries where such restorers might not be employed, to the very great profit of the collection. All purchasers for libraries are continually rejecting books because they are tattered and worn or “holey,” which could be sent to the hospital and doctored into value. And it is, indeed, to be regretted for the sake of the public that our great libraries have not all shops attached where duplicates and damaged rarities restored could be sold at fair, not fancy, prices. For it is firstly the great librarian who sees and rejects the most books, and who could do an immense amount of good, and greatly stimulate an interest in collection and literature—and make money—if he would also facilitate acquisition. The art of restoring and of mending is as yet so much in its infancy, and is so little understood and practised, that there is not one book in a thousand, even of rariora and curiosa, preserved as it might be.

It may be worth while to lay some stress on the fact that many persons, especially women, if they will take a little pains to experiment, can easily make a living by thus restoring books and injured documents. There are, indeed, many other means of earning money indicated in this work.

A cheap and durable varnish specially made for bookbinders is prepared as follows:—Take coarsely powdered gum-copal, add to it oil of thyme (oleum thymi serpilli) or pure oil of rosemary (oleum rosmarini), sufficient to form a solution. Pour off the superfluous liquid, and mix the remainder with sufficient alcohol to dissolve it well. In making take only so much of the oil of thyme or rosemary as will cover the copal, and of alcohol about eight or ten parts to the whole. Special varnishes, and perhaps better, are known to many bookbinders, who will sell them, or inform you where to obtain them. I know of none so good as that of Soehnée, which is, however, very expensive, costing about ninepence per ounce. It is rather brittle, however, for pictures.

When a book is dog’s-eared, or its leaves have been turned, if the paper be of a thin, poor quality, its chances of restoration are better than if it were good and stiff. In the former case damp the leaves one by one with water in which a little gum tragacanth has been infused. This is not so much an adhesive as a mere stiffener, and is used as such for laces. Then flatten them, putting a piece of smooth white paper between every leaf.

There is, I fear, nothing to be done where the reader is so utterly devoid of all the instincts of a gentleman or a lady as to turn over a stiff, thick, highly glazed paper to mark the place! I have just found this done in a magnificently illustrated work from a circulating library, and, to aggravate the offence, it was on pictured pages! I would here remark that if every reader would keep by him a piece of indiarubber or eraser, and obliterate, or at least render illegible, all the scribblings made on margins, this detestably vulgar practice would soon be at an end.

It may be observed that to repair pages which have been torn across, or engravings, the rent is usually transverse—that is, such as to leave a small flap edge. If we take very strong gum in very minute quantity on the point of a camel’s-hair brush, we may often succeed with great care in perfectly reuniting the edges. Observe that in this, as in everything, the mender should not draw his conclusions from the first effort, which will probably be a failure, but from frequent careful observation and experiment. There are marvellously few people in the world who take the pains to become really good menders of anything—excepting lace and the like—hence there are few things mended at all except by botchers and amateurs.

Ink-Stains can be removed from paper by laying underneath the blot a pad of clean blotting-paper or fine muslin. Take a fine sponge, dip it in lemon-juice, and press it gently on the stain, so as to moisten it. Then with a clean, white, soft rag, folded into a pad, press on the spot, and the pad, lifted off, will remove a little of the ink. Repeat this process a few times, taking care to change the pad in your hand every time to a clean spot. Do not try to rub the stain out (as most people do), but to draw the ink away or out by sucking up or by absorption. If you simply rub or press the ink in again which has just been drawn out, you will only make bad worse. And here I would observe that by this process of pressing, absorbing, and changing the “sucker” applied, you can draw appalling stains out of almost anything. You cannot, of course, prevent chemical action or change of colour, but in most cases this is the best process.

It is better to begin with lemon-juice and a little salt and water where the paper is thin. When it is strong, a mixture of muriatic acid and water generally extracts ink.

In a great many cases the staining fluid can be drawn out by absorption before any chemical change in the colour of the stuff can have been effected. Therefore it is all-important to know how to do this yourself at once, and not wait till it can be sent to a dyer or scourer or cleaner. In a few hours’ time that which could have been promptly extracted will be past all cure. When you spill ink on paper, promptly apply, first of all, blotting-paper, and then try absorption. If any stain remains then, apply the acid.

To take out a Grease-Spot.—Heat an iron (I generally effect it with a burning cigar), and hold it as near as possible to the stain without burning the paper. If this be well done the grease, wax, &c., will rapidly disappear. If there are any traces left, place on it powdered calcined magnesia for a time. This is also a good means to extract grease, wax, or oil from cloth. Very often, where lemon-juice or acid would ruin the colour of a cloth or other fabric, chloroform will take out the spot and leave the colour unchanged.

Bone, well calcined and powdered, is an excellent absorbent of grease. It should be remembered that all such processes must be renewed, for after the powder or cloth applied has received a certain quantity of the grease or stain, it ceases to be taken in. A gentle pressure or rubbing, after laying paper over the powder, facilitates the absorption.

The celebrated Athanasius Kircher, who wrote in the sixteenth century, has left an amusing account of how he one night, stopping at a convent in Sicily, took a book from the library (it was Stephanus Fagundez’ In Præcep’a Ecclesiæ)—“a new book and elegantly bound”—and spilt over it and in it all the midnight oil from his lamp! In great alarm he sent for quicklime, but there was none to be had. So he bade the monks bring him some bones, which he quickly calcined and pulverised and applied. And the next morning there was not a trace of a spot, only a little smell of oil, which soon vanished. He adds, that plaster of Paris would have done as well.

Ascertain carefully the nature of the spot before trying to extract it. For resinous substances use spirits, or eau de cologne, or turpentine. Benzine extracts several substances.

An old recipe for removing ink-stains was to take a spoonful of good aquafortis, in which break a piece of chalk the size of a large barley corn; add two spoonfuls of rose-water and one of vinegar. This should be mixed in a clean glass and left to stand for several hours. It is to be applied with a piece of new sponge, by pressure, and not too freely nor too long. When the paper is nearly dry renew the process, and when the ink shall have disappeared, promptly wash out the acid with pure water and a clean linen rag. (But it is too strong for many fabrics.)

When the ink does not penetrate the paper it can be removed by erasure with a sharp penknife, or a preparation of vulcanised indiarubber and powdered pumice-stone sold by most stationers. When this latter does not “bite,” its action can be aided by very slightly moistening it. After erasure rub the spot scraped with very finely powdered pumice-stone, and polish with a burnisher or any smooth substance.

Even when an inkstand has been spilled over a printed or long-written page, we can by prompt action extract the new ink and leave the old plain as ever; but the reader who expects to work this miracle of changing night into day must not wait till the accident happens to first attempt to remedy it, or he will probably fail. Let him first of all, not once but often, pour ink on some waste and worthless page, and then experiment first with the blotting-paper, then with the dilute acids and the padding. The time will not by any means be wasted.

A fresh ink-spot can be easily removed from paper by rubbing it with a finely pulverised mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, alum, and pumice. If the spot is an old one, moisten it first a little with water.

Ink-spots, &c., in old MSS. were sometimes ingeniously covered by ornaments in gold or colour.

When an entire page or many pages of a book are missing, it often happens that, at much less expense than would be supposed, an ingenious printer can restore the whole. There are many books for which it would be worth while to have the type cast, for even with a page thus restored the book may be worth ten times as much as if it were wanting. Missing pages are often supplied by photographic fac-similes from another copy.

It was only yesterday, as I write, here in Florence, that I heard a tourist declare that there was nothing worth buying to be found, and that everything curious was snapped up at once. To which I could not assent, never having seen so many objects as of late which I regarded as great bargains. But they were all dilapidated, and the tourist generally likes to see everything in splendid condition. To him who can restore old books and ivories and leather-work and panel pictures, there will be no lack of bargains for a long time anywhere. The men who sell are not all such marvellous experts in mending up, repairing, and forging as literary dealers in the wonderful would have us believe. If they were so clever they would not let valuable panel pictures split in two before their eyes from ignorance of knowing how to straighten and tack them at a penny’s cost. There is abundance of clever forging, of lying ivories and silver-work and sham antique leather, but of restoration of smaller or of single objects there is very little; and there is, as I have said, in this a vast field for every collector who knows enough to make practical application of what is taught in this book. It is so far from true that everything is now snapped up, that I confidently assert that there is hardly a bric-à-brac shop in Europe in which a skilled repairer cannot find a bargain, and in most cases several.

It will often be of service to the mender of books to be able to prepare parchment-paper for himself. If we take a mixture of one part nitric acid to three of water—the proportions varying very much with the quality of the acid and of the paper—and dip into it a piece of soft unglazed paper, the latter will at once harden into a substance like parchment. It should be at once washed in changes of pure water. I may here observe that neither in making this nor anything else should the operator be satisfied with a single experiment.

Regarding paper, there are certain curious facts worth knowing by every reader. Before the invention or general use of window-glass, a very transparent kind of paper was, according to Kircher (De Secretis), prepared as follows:—

Take paper from the mill, not as yet sized, and mix with it to six parts of turpentine two of mastic. This really makes a very clear, or at least diaphanous, medium, which may be used for temporarily repairing broken glass windows.

The same writer informs us that if we take fine parchment (pergamenam hædinum), prepared without lime, or naturally dried, we should lay it in water, which will just cover it, in which has been well infused boiled honey and the white of eggs. This was used to repair coloured glass windows.

There is also given in the Zauberbuch of Johann Wallberger, Frankfort, 1760, a recipe for the same purpose:—

“Take parchment prepared without lime, and steep it in a mixture of thick gum-arabic dissolved in water, the yolk of eggs well shaken, and clarified honey.”

It is worth observing, as regards these recipes from old works, that while those founded on modern chemistry and experiment are generally cheaper and apparently better, the former are often more durable in effect, and were, indeed, more thoroughly tested. There were a great many parchment windows in those days, and there are none now. And in these old works of Porta, Weckerus, Tenzelius, Kircher, Alexander of Piedmont, Mizaldus, Valentine Krautemann, and many more of which I have a large collection, there are many curious prescriptions, many of which I have seen revived from time to time of late years as modern scientific inventions—on which subject an interesting article could be written.

A weak solution of oxalic acid in water is often the best to remove ink and other stains from strong white paper or linen. It should be applied by gently pressing or dabbing (not rubbing) with a cotton pad. As soon as the stain is removed, dab it again with clean water. Take good care, however, that there are no scratches or cuts on your fingers, for if the acid gets into them it will cause great pain.

I may here mention that the old bookbinders’ paste was made as follows:—

Take a quarter of a pound of starch, steep it a quarter of an hour in water, and stir it till it is milky. Add a pinch of alum, and boil it once more.

This was said to keep better than paste made from flour. (Add a few drops of oil of cloves or carbolic acid, and it will keep very well.) Flour can, however, be used instead of starch, and a good adhesive be the result. A little glue very much improves it. There is a great difference in the quality of cement made from bread, as the condition of the latter has been changed by fermentation.

Binding.—Repairing books is nearly allied to binding, and the latter is, in perfection, a somewhat difficult art. Yet it is not at all difficult for a careful person to bind up many works in such a manner that they will bear much reading, and with a little artistic skill look very well. This may be effected as follows:—

When a book is stitched together, there are sewed into the back two or more cross pieces of string or strips of muslin, which project a little on either side, and which, by being pasted down inside the cover under a leaf, hold the book and cover together. This is further strengthened sometimes by another strip of muslin. When the back is firmly gummed or pasted to the book, so as to bend with it, it is called a flexible back, which also adds to the strength of the whole.