Dictionarium polygraphicum. To Gild Leather. To make Leather shine without Gold. To dress or cover Leather with Silver or Gold.

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 Leather.
Take glair of the whites of egg?, or gum-water, arid with a brush rub over the Leather with either of them, and then lay on the gold or silver; let them be dry, and burnish them.

To make Leather shine without Gold.
Take whites of eggs, gum-water, and powder of antimony; mix them well together by beating, and having the skin well dried, lay the mixture on them, and do it often, till the leather be quite hid; when you have done this, let the mixture dry, and then burnish them over; and if you have not antimony, you may use black-lead.

To dress or cover Leather with Silver or Gold.
Take that which is called brown-red, and grind or move it on a stone with a muller, adding water and chalk; and when the latter is dissolved, rub, or lightly dawb the skins over with it, till they look a little whitish; and then lay on the leaf-silver or gold, before they are quite dry; laying the leaves a little over each other, that there may not be the least part omitted; and when they have well closed with the leather, and are sufficiently dried on and hardened, rub them over with a polisher made of smooth ivory, or of the fore-tooth of a horse, and it will appear very lustrous and bright.