_Alloy:_ Base metal added to silver or gold for hardness or colour.
Also any combination of different metals by fusion.
_Annealing:_ Softening metal by making it red-hot and cooling slowly;
for steel, brass, copper, silver, cooling quickly in water.
_Backing:_ The coating of enamel on the back surface of box lids, to
neutralize expanse and contraction, thus preventing top enamel from
cracking.
_Basse-taille:_ Low cutting of metal beneath the line of the surface,
used in enamelling. The drawing or modelling of the subject is given by
the different depths of cutting.
_Beck iron:_ T-shaped anvil or stake used in hammer work. The arms of
the T are long; one is round and slender, and tapering; the other has a
flat upper surface.
_Bossing up:_ Beating out sheet metal in the back into rough forms
required.
_Champlevé:_ A process of enamelling on metal in which the ground of
the pattern is cut away with a chisel into a series of shallow troughs
into which the enamel is melted, the surface being afterward ground
smooth and polished.
_Chasing:_ Surface modelling of metal with hammer and punch or chasing
tools.
_Cloisonné:_ An enclosing ribbon wire, which being soldered edgewise on
a metal ground makes a trough into which enamel is melted, the ribbon
making the division. Thus the design is separated.
_Collar:_ A ring made of stout leather filled with sand or some other
soft material used to support the pitch block.
_Draw Plate:_ A flat plate of steel or iron with rows of graduated
holes, used for drawing or reducing wire.
_Face Plate:_ A square thick iron plate with the surface perfectly
smooth and level to test work on.
_Flux:_ Any material used to protect the surface of metal from
oxidation when exposed to heat. Borax and water mixed, etc.
_Graver:_ A kind of small chisel used for cutting metal, or lines on
surfaces.
_Mandrel:_ A rod of wood or iron of any section used either for coiling
wire for chains or the making of rings. _Matt tool:_ A punch, flat and
graduated on one end, used for making groined surfaces on metal.
_Pickle:_ Solutions of various acids in water used for removing the
film of oxide and sulphide surface of metal. The acids used are nitric
acid, hydrochloric acid, and sulphuric acid, about 8 to 1. This is
strong enough for ordinary work.
_Pin:_ The hard wood peg fixed in the bench to hold work against to
file and fit.
_Pitch block:_ Some iron blocks and wood blocks covered with pitch used
as a support for metal in repoussé work or chasing.
_Planishing:_ Beating a plane or level surface to a sheet of metal by
the use of a broad smooth-faced hammer on a stake or anvil. Also used
to give smoothed face to a bowl or cup or other object in sheet metal.
_Repoussé:_ The method of beating out sheet metal from the back with
hammer and punches.
_Sand bag:_ A flat circular or square bag of leather filled with sand
used for bossing up metal upon.
_Scraper:_ A tool made from an old file by sharpening the point on
a stone to a three-sided pyramid; used for scraping clear edges and
surfaces to be soldered and for cleaning up work generally.
_Snarling iron:_ Long Z-shaped bar of iron fixed in a vise and used
for bossing out the surface of vessels from the inside. They act by
rebounding from the blow of the hammer near the end fixed in the vise.
_Tracer:_ A chisel-shaped punch used for cutting for any design or work
that requires deep lines.