XLVIII. A most beautiful Chinese varnish.

Valuable Secrets concerning Arts and Trades:
or Approved Directions, from the best Artists, for the Various Methods...
Printed by Thomas Hubbard,
Norwich, 1795Chap. III. Secrets for the composition of Varnishes, &c.


XLVIII. A most beautiful Chinese varnish.

Take one ounce of the whitest karabe (amber); or, instead of this, the same quantity of the whitest gum copal: four drachms of sandarac; two, of fine mastich, in drops. Put all this, reduced into a powder, in a fine glass matrass; then, pour over it one ounce of the finest turpentine oil. Stop the matrass first with a cork, then with a bladder wetted. Set this to infuse, over a slow fire, for twelve hours. After this, uncork, and let cool, the matrass; then pour, gently, in it six ounces of good spirit of wine, and stop it again as well as before. In that situation, set it on ember ashes, or, rather, in a balmeo mariæ. In the space of another twelve hours, you will find that the spirit of wine shall have dissolved all the gums. Then, while the varnish is still quite warm, drain it through a cloth; bottle and cork it, to keep for use.