Dictionarium polygraphicum. To gild iron...

Dictionarium Polygraphicum:
Or, The Whole Body of Arts Regularly Digested.
Vol II.
London: Printed for C. Hitch and C. Davis in Pater-noster Row, and S. Austen in St. Paul's Church Yard. MDCCXXXV.
1735
To gild iron or steel.
Take tartar 2 ounces, vermilion 6 ounces, bole-armeniack and aqua-vita, of each 4 ounces, grind them together with linseed-oil, and put to them the quantity of 2 hazle-nuts of lapis calaminaris, and grind therewith in the end a sew drops of varnish; take it off the stone, strain it through a linnen cloth, (for it must be as thick as honey) then strike it over Iron or steel, and let it dry; so lay on your silver or gold, and burnish it.

To gild IRON with water.
Take spring-water 3 pound, as many ounces of roch-alum, Roman vitriol and orpiment of each 1 ounce, verdigrease 24 grains, sal gemma 3 ounces, boil all together, and when it begins to boil, put in tartar and bay-salt, of each half an ounce; continue the boiling a good while, then take it from the fire, and strike the iron over with it, dry it against the fire, and burnish it.

To lay gold on IRON or other metals.
Take of liquid varnish 2 pound, linseed-oil and turpentine, of each 2 ounces, mix them well together, and strike them over Iron or any other metal, and afterward lay on leaf-gold or silver, and when it is dry polish it. A water for gilding Iron, steel, knives, swords, and armour. Reduce fire-stone to powder, put it into a strong red wine vinegar, for 24 hours, boil it in a glaz'd pot, adding more vinegar as it evaporates or boils away, dip iron, steel,&c. into this water, and it will come out black; then polish it, and you will have a gold colour underneath.

Another way.
Take salt-petre, roch-alum burnt, of each an ounce, sal-armoniack 2 ounces, powder them fine, and boil them with strong vinegar in a copper-vessel, with this wet the Iron, and lay on leaf-gold.

Another way.
Grind roch-alum with the urine of a boy, 'till it is well dislblv'd, heat the Iron red-hot, in a fire of woodcoals, and anoint the Iron with the liquor, and it will look like gold.

Another way of gilding Iron.
Take of water a pound and a half, of alum one ounce, sal gemma an ounce and a half, of Roman vitriol, and orpiment, of each half an ounce, of flos æris 12 grains; boil all with tartar and salt, as in the first prescription.

To make Iron of the colour of gold.
Take linseed-oil 6 ounces, tartar 4 ounces, yolks of eggs boil'd hard and beaten 4 ounces, aloes 1 ounce, saffron 10 grains, turmerick 4 grains; boil all together in an earthen vessel, and anoint the Iron with the oil, and it will look like gold.
If there be not linseed-tit enough, you may put in more;

A golden liquor to colour Iron, wood, glass, Or bones.
Take a new-laid egg, make a hole at one end, and take out the white, and fill it up with 2 parts of quicksilver, and one part of sal-armoniac finely powdered, mix all together with a wire or little stick, then stop the hole with melted wax, over which put an half egg-shell, digest them in horse-dung for a month, and it will be a fine golden coloured liquor.


To gild IRON and STEEL.
You must first give to the Iron and steel the colour of brass by the following method.
Polish the Iron or steel, and then rub it with aqua-fortis, in which filings of brass have been dissolv'd: the same is to be done as to silver.

2. An amalgama of gold and mercury, with which silver-gilders gild silver, brass, and copper, will not gild Iron and steel; but by the following method it may be done.
First coat the Iron or steel with copper, by dissolving very good vitriol of copper in warm water, 'till the liquor be satiated with the vitriol; then immerse the Iron or steel several times in the dissolution (but having first secured it bright) and suffering it to dry each time of itself; for by this immersion being often enough repeated, enough of the copperous particles will precipitate upon the Iron to fill the superficial pores of the Iron.

3. By this safe and easy way, having overlaid the Iron with copper, you may gild it as copper, either by the aforesaid amalgama, or by the method of whitening copper or brass artificially, (which see in the articles of COPPER and BRASS.)


To make IRON of a gold colour.
Take alum of melanty in powder, and mix it with sea-water; then heat the Iron red-hot, and quench it with the water.

To make IRON of a silver colour.
Mix powder of sal-armoniack with unflack'd lime in cold water, heat the Iron redhot, and quench it in it, and it will be as white as silver.

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To tinge IRON with a gold colour.
Lay plates of Iron and' brimstone in a crucible, layer upon layer, cover it, and lute it weli and calcine it in a furnace; then take out the plates, and they will be brittle; put them into a pot with a large mouth, and put in sharp distilled vinegar, digesting over a gentle heat till they wax red; then decant the vinegar, and add new, doing this till all the iron be dissolved; then evaporate the moisture in a glass retort or vestca, and cast the remaining powd;r on silver or other white metal, and it will look like gold.

To whiten IRON.
First purge the Iron, by heating it redhot, and quenching it in water made of lye and vinegar, boiled with salt and alum, doing this so often till it becomes whitish.
Pound the fragments of iron in a mortar, till the salt is quite changed, and that there is no blackness left in its liquor, and till the iron is cleansed from its dross.
Then amalgamate lead and quicksilver together, and reduce them into a powder: then lay the prepared plates of iron and this powder layer upon layer in a crucible; cover it, and lure it all over very strongly, that the least fume may not issue forth, and set it into the fire for a day; at length increase the fire, so as it may melt the Iron (which will be done very quickly) and repeat this operation till it is white enough.
It is whitened also by melting with lead the marcasite or firestone and arsenick.
If you mix with it a little silver (with which it readily unites) it gives a wonderful whiteness, scarcely ever to be changed any more by any art whatsoever.

To render IRON of a brass colour.
Take flowers of brass, vitriol, and sal armoniac in fine powder, of each a like quantity; boil it half an hour in strong vinegar; take it off, and put in either iron or silver, covering the vessel till it is cold, and the metal will be like to brass, and fit to be gilded; or rub polished iron with aquafortis, in which filings of brass have been dissolved.

To tinge IRON of a brass colour.
Melt the iron in a crucible casting sulphur vivum upon it; then cast it into small rods, and beat it into pieces; (for it will be very brittle:) then dissolve it in aquafortis, and evaporate the menstruum, reducing the powder by a strong fire into a body again, and it will be good brass.