usceptible of being made to
please the fancy of the many than this. It can be made in any tint that
may be required by the application of Judson's dyes, and the exercise of
a little skill in the decoration will produce very pleasing effects.

=Decorations.=--The decorations are usually ornaments drawn in gold. A
cut-out stencil pattern is generally used, and the surface brushed over
with a camel's-hair pencil and japanner's gold size, which can be
obtained at the artist's colourman's, or, if preferred, can be made by
boiling 4 ozs. of linseed-oil with 1 oz. of gum anime and a little
vermilion. When the size is tacky, or nearly dry, gold powder or gold
leaf is applied. The gold is gently pressed down with a piece of
wadding, and when dry the surplus can be removed with a round
camel's-hair tool. In all cases where gold has been fixed by this
process it will bear washing without coming off, which is a great
advantage.

CHAPTER IX.

_AMERICAN POLISHING PROCESSES_

The method of polishing furniture practised by the American
manufacturers differs considerably from the French polishing processes
adopted by manufacturers in most European countries. This difference,
however, is mostly compulsory, and is attributable to the climate. The
intense heat of summer and the extreme cold of winter will soon render a
French polish useless, and as a consequence numerous experiments have
been tried to obtain a polish for furniture that will resist heat or
cold. The writer has extracted from two American cabinet-trade journals,
_The Cabinet-maker_ and _The Trade Bureau_, descriptions of the various
processes now used in the States, which descriptions were evidently
contributed by practical workmen. The following pages are not, strictly
speaking, a mere reprint from the above-named journals, the articles
having been carefully revised and re-written after having been
practically tested; attention to them is, therefore, strongly
recommended.

In these processes the work is first filled in with a "putty filler,"
and after the surface has been thoroughly cleaned it is ready for
shellac or varnish. Second, a coating of shellac is next applied with a
brush or a soft piece of Turkey sponge. This mixture is composed of two
parts (by weight) of shellac to one of methylated spirits, but what is
called "thin shellac" is composed of one part shellac to two of spirits.
After the coating is laid on and allowed to dry, which it does very
s