Page:Family receipt book.pdf/9

9 water. The ornaments of a French clock are, however, best cleaned with bread-crumb, carefully rubbed, so as not to spoil the wood work. Ormolu candlesticks, lamps, and brancbes, may be cleaned with soap and water. They will bear more cleaning than lacquered articles, wbich are spoiled by fre-quent rubbing, or by acids, or strong alkalies.

WINDOWS AND LOOKING-GLASSES.

Dip a moistened rag or flannel into indigo, fuller's earth, ashes, or rotten-stone, in impalpable powder, with which smear the glass, and wipe off with a dry soft cloth. Powder-blue or whiting, tied up in muslin, and dusted upon the glass, and cleaned off with chamois leather, also gives glass a fine polish. The spots in the silvering of old looking-glasses are caused by damp at the back. Window-panes may be made to resemble ground glass by daubing them with putty,or a brush with a little thin paste.

BRASS AND COPPER.

Brass and copper are best cleaned with sweet oil and tri-poli, powdered bath-brick, rotten-stone, or red brick- dust, rubbed on with flannel and polisbed with leather. A strong solution of oxalic acid in water gives brass & fine colour. Vitriol and spirits of salts soon make brass and copper very bright, but they very soon tarnish, and conse-quently require more frequent cleaning. A strong ley of roche-alum and water will also improve brass.

GRATES AND STOVES.

Grates and stoves are cleaned with black lead mixed with turpentine, or with stale beer and yellow soap, and polished off. The finer lead is used dry in lump or powder. The bronzed work of stoves should be only ligbtly brushed. Rottenstone, or finc emery and sweet oil, is used for the bright work of stoves and polished fire-irons; the higher the latter are polished, tbe less likely are they to rust. To prevent rust in articles not often used, rub them with sweet oil, and dust over them fine lime; or with the following mixture :--To a quart of cold water, add half a pound of quicklime; let it stand until the top is clear, when pour off the liquid and stir up with it some olive oil, until it becomes of a pasty consistence, when it should be rubbed on the metal articles to be preserved. To fill cracks in stove backs, make a paste of wood ashes, salt, and water. To remove rust, mix tripoli, sulphur, and sweet oil, and clean the articles with it; or mix boiled soft soap with emery No. 3, which will also discharge the fire marks