How this art may be applied to making signs of every description,
numbers of dwellings, door plates, ornamental borders for pictures,
ornamenting work boxes, etc., which are made at a trifling expense, and
unsurpassed for brilliancy.
First. Clean well the glass to be used, with alcohol. Second. Wet with
your tongue the side cleaned, and immediately lay over the whole of that
side a coat of gold or silver leaf. Third. Let this dry on—it will take
from two to four minutes. Fourth. When the leaf has dried on the glass,
polish it with a ball of cotton. Some of the leaf may possibly be rubbed
off by the polishing, but this is of no consequence. Fifth. After
polishing, wet again with your tongue the whole side you have polished,
and lay another coating of leaf over it. Let this dry. Sixth. After the
second coat of leaf is dry, polish it as before, with the ball of
cotton, and then your sign or door plate will be ready for lettering.
As a border will add much to the appearance of the plate, I will now
instruct you how to make one. Rule with the point of a needle two lines
around the edge of the plate, the outside line one-quarter of an inch
from the edge. After the lines have been ruled, wet your pencil brush,
and with it moisten the leaf laying outside of the space between the
lines you have ruled, and remove with the brush the leaf thus moistened,
working gently from the lines. Your border is now made.
Your next step is to put the lettering on the glass. To do this, first
measure the height of your letters, then rule with the needle two lines
as far apart as the letters are high. When this is done, lay the letters
on the leaf, one at a time, beginning at the right hand, and placing the
back of the letters up, or backwards. Hold the letters on firmly with
your left hand, and with your right mark around them with a needle. When
you have marked around all the letters in this way, wet with your tongue
the pencil brush, and apply it to all the leaf on the glass, except what
is needed for the letters and border; then remove the leaf thus wet by
rubbing it gently with the brush.
The next process is to apply the Japan. Do this with a small paint
brush, and cover the whole of the side which has been covered with the
silver leaf. It will require two coats, and after these are dry you have
an elegant plate.
All that now remains to be done is to place the plate in a frame, to do
this apply a little putty to the edges of the glass, and set it in the
frame; then lay upon the back a piece of paper of the same size, and
over that a piece of tin, and fill up the remaining space with plaster
of Paris. Your door plate is now complete.
To ornament glass work boxes, flowering, etc., proceed as above.
=Articles Used.= A small camel-hair pencil brush, cost three cents; blue
or black enamel, or Japan, per gill, 25 cents; selected silver leaf, per
book, (24 sheets), 24 cents; patterns for letters, per set, 37½ cents;
patterns for numbers, per set, 25 cents.
[NOTE.—A gill of Japan will answer for fifty signs. A book of silver
leaf will answer for six or eight door plates.]