A SAFE GIMP-STAIN. 33 



well, and wipe it dry. It is well to remember that eacli time 

 the stain is used the solution becomes weakened, as the brass 

 takes away with it a coating of platinum. Another plan, 

 recommended by Mr. Jardine, is to leave the gimp in a receptacle 

 containing imitation London air. The process takes four or 

 five hours, and does not rot the silk. It gives the gimp a nice 

 colour. The imitation London atmosphere is manufactured in 

 the following manner: Put loz. flowers of sulphur in a flower-pot 

 saucer, and place over it, on end, a drain-pipe or other cylinder. 

 Arrange a coil of gimp at the top of the cylinder, cover over 

 with, first, a sheet of paper, and then a soup-plate, and set fire 

 to the sulphur with a fusee. The atmosphere produced will 

 stain the gimp in a few hours. I have often thought that if 

 the bichlorate of platinum could be made into a stiff paste, 

 it could be applied without the slightest danger of its reaching 

 the silk; and while bothering all my chemical friends for a 

 recipe, a mixture of vaseline, nitrate of silver, and sulphur was 

 suggested. I accordingly experimented, and at the end of two 

 hours produced a paste which, ten minutes after being smeared 

 on the gimp, gave the wire that dull, neutral tint which is so 

 desirable, without affecting the silk in the least. This paste 

 acts equally well on silver gimp. Its proportions are as follows: 

 Nitrate of silver, 35 grains; sulphur, 1 drachm; vaseline, i 

 drachm. This makes about a pill-box full, which is sufficient to 

 stain all the gimp an angler is likely to want in two seasons. 

 My paste was made by Mr. Davis, chemist, Northbrook Street, 

 Newbury, who would, no doubt, be very pleased to supply it; 

 but, of course, any chemist can make it, and fishing-tackle makers 

 will be well advised to keep it for sale in small metal boxes. 



I intend in future to use nothing but silver gimp, leaving those 

 portions of the tackle which lie along the bait unstained.* 



Disgorger and Gag. — To remove the hooks from the pike 



* In the course of my experiments I found that brass gimp could be made to look 

 like copper gimp by hanging it for half an hour in the fumes arising from a mixture 

 of black oxide of manganese, Joz., and spirits of salt, loz.— an experiment easily 

 carried out by means of a large-mouthed glass bottle. An equally good, if not 

 better, mixture for the same purpose, the fumes from which will stain the gimp in 

 ten minutes, is bleaching powder (chloride of lime), ^oz., and dilute sulphuric acid, 

 l^z. The bottle in which the operation is carried on should not be tightly 

 stoppered, a small crack being left to act as a safety-valve. 



DIV. II. D 



