Recent Foreign Inventions

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Painting—Wm. Fregoot ol Manchester, Eng., patentee. To produce a plain, white, polished surface, the patentee takes carbonlite of lead or znic white, which he grinds up with turpentine and partially dries, and then mixes with copal varnish. This compound is then laid on the surface to be covered until the requisite number of coatings have been given; in each successive coating the varnish should be increased. When dry, the surface is rubbed smooth with pumice dust or rotten stone. For coachmakers* work much time will be saved by mixing the different colors required (ground up with the turpentine) with the white body varnish above described, a fewer number of coatings will be required than when the varnish is laid on over paint, as is now the case. Ornamental devices, such as scrolls, flowers, &c., may be produced on polished surfaces obtained as above, by cutting out the ornament paper and pinning it on the surface, and then stippling over the whole with any suitable paint by which a dead ground can be produced. When the stippling is dry and the paper removed, the ornament will be left in high and bright relief Another method consists in painting the ornament with a solution of sugar starch, gelatine, or gum, then stippling over the whole surface, and when dry washing with water, by whichthat portion of the stippling by which the ornament is covered will be removed, together with the gum, starch, or sugar used in stippling it out, and the ornament will be left in bright relief. Steel—Wm. W. Collins, London, patentee—The puddling furnace is to be charged with 4 cwt. of grey pig iron and a large proportionate quantity of silicate of iron or other metallic oxide. The first stage of the boiling in furnace is conducted as usual, except that the mass is not raked nor stirred. After the boiling has continued 30 minutes, the mass will exhibit a tendency to rise, and the pud-dler must then begin to work vigorously until the iron is ready for the balling and putting through the squeezers. The product of the above is a fine, close-grained iron, which possesses the property ot combining readily with carbon. To convert the finished bar into steel they are placed into crucibles without previous cementation, together with pounded charcoal, and melted therewith. Turkey Red Color—John Mercer and John Greenwood, patentees—This patent is simply lor wetting pieces of cotton by a padding machine before it is passed through the oil solution. We believe there are no Turkey reds dyed in the United States, but the time will come when this beautiful color will be dyed here as well as it is in England or Switzerland. It will interest some of our readers who are practical chemists in our calico printworks, to know that the patentees run their cloth through the olive oil bath, heated to aear the boiling point, then press it between rollers and dry in a store-room at 180 Fah., after which it is next passed through an alkaline solution of pearl ash and soda, then washed, dried, and is prepared for the sumac or galls, prior to getting the alum, which is the mordant preparatory to dyeing in the madder bath.

Scientific American Magazine Vol 8 Issue 10This article was published with the title “Recent Foreign Inventions” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 8 No. 10 (), p. 78
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican11201852-78

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