To Make Blacking

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Take 1 oz. gum arabic, half an oz. coppe ras, 2 oz. muriatic acid (spirits of salt), and 4 oz,, ivory black moistened with half oz. oil of vitriol diluted with three or four times its weight of water. Mix them well together, and then add 4 oz. of sugar candy, 1J of sweet oil, and three pints of - vinegar, which, being shaken, then spread lightly over the boots, and rub with a stiff brush until dry, when it will give a brilliant jet black. The following is another method for render ing leather impervious to water:— Dissolve 1 oz. of glue in 2 pints of water, and add 4 oz. of ivory black and 2 or 3 oz. of sugar, mix this with a solution of gum elastic (india rubber), and rosin prepared with spi rits of turpentine and linseed oil. Having first moistened the leather with a decoction of oak bark, apply this composition which, when dry, wBl render tb#!eatlier ter proof. In the above preparations, larap-tlack will an swer when ivory-black cannot be obtained.

Scientific American Magazine Vol 8 Issue 29This article was published with the title “To Make Blacking” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 8 No. 29 (), p. 225
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican04021853-225

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