Directions For Cleaning And Polishing Old Furniture

Take a quart of stale beer or vinegar, put a handful of common salt, and a table spoonful of spirits of salt into it, and boil it for a quarter of an hour; you may keep it in a bottle, and warm it when wanted for use; having previously washed your furniture with soft hot water to get the dirt off, wash it carefully with the above mixture; then polish, according to the directions, with any of the foregoing polishes.

Mahogany furniture may be cleaned and improved, by taking three-pennyworth of alkanet root, one pint of cold-drawn linseed oil, and two-pennyworth of rose pink; or a part only of the alkanet and rose pink may be added, if the pinky shade occasioned by them should be disagreeable. These ingredients are put together into a pan, to stand all night: the mixture is then rubbed on tables and chairs, and suffered to remain one hour. After this, it is to be rubbed off with a linen cloth, and it will leave a beautiful gloss on the furniture.

To Take Bruises Out Of Furniture

Wet the part with warm water; double a piece of brown paper five or six times, soak it, and lay it on the place; apply on that a hot flat-iron till the moisture is evaporated; if the bruise be not gone, repeat the process. After two or three applications, the dent or bruise will be raised level with the surface. If the bruise be small, merely soak it with warm water, and apply a red-hot poker very near the surface; keep it continually wet, and in a few minutes the bruise will disappear.

To Make Furniture Paste

Scrape two ounces of bees' wax into a pot or basin; then add as much spirits of turpentine as will moisten it through; at the same time powder an eighth part of an ounce of rosin, and add to it, when dissolved to the consistence of paste, as much Indian red as will bring it to a deep mahogany colour: stir it up, and it will be fit for use.

Polishing Paste

Half a pound of mottled soap cut into pieces, mixed with half a pound of rotten-stone in powder; put them into a saucepan, with enough of cold water to cover the mixture (about three pints); boil slowly till dissolved to a paste.

Another, For Light Coloured Woods

Scrape a quarter of a pound of bees' wax into half a pint of turpentine, and mixing with the same about a quarter of a pint of linseed oil. Bees' wax scraped, and set in a warm place, with turpentine enough to make it into a paste, will keep the wood still lighter.

Furniture Oil

Put linseed oil in a glazed pipkin, with as much alkanet root as it will cover; let it boil gently till it becomes of a strong red colour; let it cool, and it will be fit for use.

Another

Take of cold-drawn linseed oil, one pint, into which put one ounce of powdered rose-pink; stir it well together, and add one ounce of alkanet root, beat in a mortar. Let the whole stand in a warm place for a few days, when the oil will be deeply coloured, and, the substances having settled, the oil may be poured off for use.

This is an excellent method of darkening new mahogany.