Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/76

 Qe FEDERAL REPORTBR. �the wort with boiled linseed oil until the gum of the oil, the fiber of the wood, and the sand that came off the sand-paper produced a sort of gummy paste, which, in the process of rubbing, would lodge in the open pores of the wood, and which required much time and hard rubbing to fiU the grains passably. This gum being composed of oil required much time to dry ; otherwise, if varnished before it was dry, it would shrink in drying, and crack and displace the varnish. Thia was the process of finishing ail the ordinary work. The finer quality of work, known as 'hand-polish finish,' required to be varnished with from three to five coats of what is known as «craping varnish, which, when dry, was scraped off with a cabinet-maker's steel scraper, leaving none of the many coats of varnish on the work, except that in the grains of the word below the surface, after which from three to five Coats of pol- ishing varnish were applied ; then the work was rubbed down with pumice stone and water, and polished up with rotton etone and the hand ; the palm of the hand bringing the pol- ish up. This process is the same as heretofore used by ail the piano makers in the country." �The invention, and the difficulties which it was intended to obviate, are thus described in the specification: "Heretofore various materials have been used to fiU the grain in processes of finishing woods, such as pulverized mari, clay, flour, chalk, starch, and different gums ; but ail are found to have objection- able features in use, which my new process is designed to obvi- ate. In some of the substances employed the particles, when powdered, are round or spherical, and without angles, and con- eequently do not readily adhere to each other and unite with the pores of the wood, and others are wanting in durability, and subject to injurions atmospheric action. I am also aware that various forms of infuaorial silicates have been used in mixtures for filling the grain of wood, but these are ail very powerful absorbents of liquids, and carry the moisture by the quality of their capillarity into the wood itself, which has to be removed by evaporation before the varnish can be applied to the surface of the wood, and which opens the pores when said moisture is evaporated, and prevents it from being solid- ����