Chap. XIII. Secrets relative to the art of taking out spots and stains.

Valuable Secrets concerning Arts and Trades:
or Approved Directions, from the best Artists, for the Various Methods...
Printed by Thomas Hubbard,
Norwich, 1795I. To take off iron-molds from linen.

Put boiling water into a bowl and spread the stained part, or parts, of your linen over it, so as to let it be well penetrated with the steam of the water. Then rub the places with sorrel's juice and salt till they are perfectly and thoroughly shaked with it. Such linen washed afterwards in the lye of wood-ashes, will be found to return intirely free from the iron mold spots it had before.


II. To take off carriage-wheel's grease from clothes.

Rub the place with butter. Then with blotting paper and a hot iron, or a bit of red hot charcoals in a silver spoon, you may take all off as you would a drop of wax or tallow on a cloth.


III. Against piss-spots.

Boil some chamberlye and wash the place with it. Then rinse it with clear water.


IV. To take off all sorts of spots from cloth of whatever colour it may be.

Take half a pound of crude honey, the yolk of a new laid egg, and the bulk of a nut of ammoniac salt. Mix all well together, and put some on the spots which happen to be on either silk or cloth. After having left it there a while, wash the place with clean water, and the spot will disappear.


V. A general receipt against all sorts of spots, upon every sort of stuff.

A water impregnated wtith alkaline salt, black soap and bullock's gall, takes off extremely well the greasy spots from any cloth or silk stuff.


VI. Against oil-spots.

Take a piece of white soap which you shave very fine and put in a quart bottle with a wide mouth and neck, half filled with lye. Add to this the bulk of a nut of ammoniac salt, two yolks of eggs, cabbage-juice and bullock's gall a discretionable quantity, and in short one ounce of salt of tartar in subtile powder sifted. Stop the bottle well, shake it and expose it to a south sun for four days. After that time, if you pour off that liquor on any oil spot and rub it well with it in and outlide, then let it dry, and wash it again with clear water, or again with the following composition of soap, that spot will entirely disappear.


VII. A washing-ball to take off spots.

Take fuller's earth, or soft soap which mix and incorporate with vine brush ashes, white chalk, alum and tartar pounded all together in a mortar and lifted through a very fine silk sieve. When all us made into a paste, form your balls with it and it them dry in the made. To use them, rub any spotted place with it and wash it afterwards with clear water.


VIII. To take out pitch and turpentine spots.

Rub well the spot with oil of olive, which set to dry for one day and one night. Then, with warm water and the above washing ball, you will entirely ungrease the place.


IX. Against ink-spots, whether on cloth or linen.

Wet immediately the place with lemon's, or sorrel's juice, or with white soap diluted in vinegar.


X. Another mere simple remedy against ink spilled.

Prejudice always did, and alway will, prove fatal from the minutest to the most interesting circumstane in life. The time which is spent in lamenting over an accident, just happened before our own eyes, is but too often the easy one which could have saved and prevented the dire consequeaces of it, nay perhaps repaired it intirely without leaving the least fear behind, had we ran instantly to the remedy. Ink never does nor can spoil the cloth, stuff, silk, lace, or linen on which it is spilled, unless it lies there to driness. And it is well known, on the other hand, that if you put as much water in your ink-horn, as there is ink, you make it too pale: if twice, still more so: if three, four, five, fix, if twenty if fifty times; then it will be such indeed that it will be no more ink at all. What could a pint of ink do in a quart of milk? a great deal of mischief without doubt. But, in 50 or a 100 gallons nothing; at all. By parity of reasoning it must be obvious that if on the finest silk, cloth or velvet, muslin or lace ruffles, &c. a whole phial of ink mould be spilled, an undeterminate greater quantity of water than there was ink, poured instantly on the place, by degrees and not all at once, must weaken it to such a degree as to wash it off at last intirely. What reasoning thus once dictated naturally, reiterated experience since proved: therefore, here it is recommended. Sense only and judgment must be consulted in the execution. As for example, if the ink be spilled on a ruffle or apron, &c. while you have it on, let one hold the affected part between his two hands over a bason and rub it while another is pouring gradually water from a decanter; and let a whole pitcherful be used if necessary. If the ruffle, apron, &c. be at liberty and not actually worn on, the place dipped in to a bason filled with water, and there squeezed and dipped in again, may do; provided you change the water in abundance, every two or three squeezes. If the ink be spilled on a green carpet table, it may immediately be taken out with a tea spoon so dexterously that any water at all shall hardly be wanted afterwards, provided it has not laid any time on it, and was only that instant spilled; as the down of the cloth prevents the immediate soaking of the ink or any liquor indeed (except oil) through and through. But if it have laid some time, let the time be ever so longs provided it is still wet, by pouring a little fresh clean water at a time on the place, and gathering it up each time with a spoon, and pressing hard to squeeze it out of the cloth into the spoon again, you will at last bring it to its natural colour as if no such accident had ever happened. These few circumstances explained, are sufficient to guide any one, who has a common share of good sense and undestanding, how to act on this principle in others.


XI. Against oil spots on satin, and other silk-stuffs, even on paper.

If the spot is fresh and just done, heat on, the shovel some,ashes from calcined sheep's troters, and put some under and upon the place. Then, laying something heavy upon it, let it remain so for one night; the next morning the spot ought to be gone: but, if not quite, renew the precept.


XII. A preparation of balls against spots.

Take half a pound of soap, four ounces of clay, and one of quick lime. Dilute all with a little water, and make it into pills or small balls. With these rub the spots, and wash the place afterwards.


XIII. For silks.

If you rub the spots which are upon a silk with spirit of turpentine, they will disappear: because the volatility of that spirit exhaling into vapour, carries along with it the oil of the spot to which, on account of its homogeneous quality, it communicates its volatility, by penetrating and subdividing it infinitely.


XIV. To restore gold and silver laces to their former beauty.

Mix equal quantities of water, bullock's and jack's gall. With this composition rub your gold or silver and you will see it changing colour directly.


XV. To restore Turkey carpets to their first bloom.

Beat the carpet well first with a rod, till perfectly free from dust. Then, if there be any spot of ink, take them out with a lemon, or with sorrel, and wash the place afterwards with clear water. Shake the rest of the water off, and let it dry where you rubbed it with any. When dry, rub the carpet very hard all over with the smoaking hot crum of a white loaf: and, when you find in the evening, the skies clear aed a likelyhood of being a fine night, let the carpet be put out for two or three such nights.


XVI. To make tapestries resume their first brightness, when their colours have been tarnished and spoiled.

Shake and clean well the tapestry by rubbing it all ever with white chalk which you leave on it for about one day. Next, with a rough hair brush, get all that chalk out again, and put on fresh, which leave as before. Then with the same rough hair brush get this out also, and beat it foundly with a rod and brush it afterwards with the soft cloth-brush. This operation will restore a tapestry to its pristine state.


XVII. To take off all the spots of wax from velvet of any colour, except the crimson.

Take the crum of a stale loaf, and cut a thick slice out fit, which toast, and apply, while burning hot, on the spot of wax; when cooled, renew it till all the wax is soaked out of the velvet.


XVIII. To take the same off from silks and camblet.

Put on each wax spot, some soft soap, and set in the sun till grown warm; then, by washing the place with clean water, the spot will disappear.


XIX. To wash a gold or silver, or silk embroidery, on either linen, or any stuff whatever, and render it like new.

Take bullock's gall, one pound; soap and honey, three ounces of each; and Florentine orrice, about the same quantity in subtile powder. Put all in a glass vessel, in which mix it well, into a paste, and let it be exposed for ten days in the sun. When you are ready to use it make an infusion of bran, which boil in water and strain through a cloth. Then smear the work over with the above-described paste, in such places as you want to clean, and wash them afterwards with the said bran water, renewing this till it receives no more alteration in its colour. Wipe then well the places with a white cloth; and wrap the work in a clean napkin to set it in the sun to dry, after which pass it through the polishing and lustring press, and the work will be ast fine and bright as when new.


XX. To take the spots off from silk and woollen stuffs.

Take French starch, without any mixture of indigo or blue whatever, which dilute in a cup with good brandy, like a thick pap. Of this paste, put on each spot, and, when dry, rub it off and brush it. If the spot is not quite gone at the first time, renew the operation, and it certainly will at the second.


XXI. To colour velvet in red.

Take four ounces of adragant, and one of Arabick gums, both of which pulverise. Put this powder in clean water, wherein let it dissolve for two or three days. After which time, steep a sponge in the liquor, and rub the wrong side of the velvet. If, after being dry, you find it not high-coloured enough, renew it and the effect will surprise you.


XXII. To revive the colour of a cloth.

Pour one quart of water on one pound of burnt potashes. Twelve hours after decant the water off in another vessel, and put in a handful of dry moth-mullein's leaves, with two bullocks galls. Boil all together till the leaves go to the bottom. Then set this water for a few days in the sun. Then putting in it whatever colour you want, boil it along with the cloth in that lye, and let it thus soak afterwards for fourteen or fifteen days, then the cloth will have resumed its primary colour.


XXIII. To take the spots of from a white cloth.

Boil two ouness of alum for half an hour, in a pint or a pint and a-half of water; then put in a piece of white soap, with another pound of alum; and, having soaked thus three days in the cold, you may with it, wash all the spots of any white cloth whatever.