THE YOUNG 
give the girl a chance to either help their 
brotliers or near friends to make the 
articles, or to decorate them after they 
are made, or to make something of their 
own accord. 
Now, let us suppose Eobert has an uncle 
he wants to give something to ; he looks 
about in his uncle's room and spies a 
place on the wall where a picture ought 
to hang to break the dead surface. It im- 
mediately occurs to Kobert that one of the 
best things he can do is to make a nice 
picture frame for the vacant spot and 
give it to Uncle Joe for a Christmas gift. 
Robert has some knowledge of tools, and 
has a fair supply of them, besides having 
a foot-lathe and a well-built scroll-saw. 
He goes to work and makes a frame like 
iJ^yi one shown in the cut. 
The frame is made to receive glass 
12x16 inches, and has the sides made of 
cherry, oak or other wood, one inch 
thick and one inch and three-quarters 
wide. The ends of the side are made a 
little ornamental by being shaped with 
the scroll-saw. The front edges are 
chamfered, or bevelled off as may be seen 
by examining the cut. The top piece is 
about an inch and a quarter thick and 
two inches wide, and is wwked to the 
shape shown ; it falls back from the front 
about half an inch, but is flush on the 
back and rebated to received the glass. 
The bottom piece is about one and a 
SCIENTIST. 123 
quarter inches thick, and one and a half 
inches wide, and is worked to shape by 
planes or chisels. The whole .is made of 
cherry, oak or other suitable wood that 
may be handy. The top and bottom 
pieces may be fastened into the sides by 
tenon and mortise, or may be doweled 
and well glued in. Other modes of fasten- 
ing will suggest themselves, but Eobert 
adhered to the good old honest tenon and 
mortise, as he thought it the strongest 
and most durable. When the frame 
was completed and nicely sand-papered 
until it was smooth and clean, Eobert 
thought he would like to ebonize it, that 
is, make it appear like ebony. To do 
this he turned over to page 156 of his 
Workshop Companion, and found tliat he 
had to apply a boiling decoction of log- 
wood to the work three or four times, 
allowing it to dry before the next washing- 
took place. When the fourth coat was 
perfectly dry the whole was washed with 
a solution of acetate of iron, which he 
made by dissolving iron filings in vinegar. 
This made an excellent stain as it pene- 
trated to some considerable distance into 
the wood. 
At this juncture the frame looked like 
a solid x)iece of ebony unpolished and 
rather rough. He smoothed it down 
again with very fine sandpaper, and 
rubbed it with a linen cloth. The dead 
black, however, did not look so nice as he 
thought it would, so he bought a bottle 
of liquid gold at the nearest store where 
artists' supplies were kept. With this 
gold he touched up the cross indentations 
on the sides of the frame, and " cut in 
some very fine lines on the top and l)ottom 
pieces. This process relieved the wo'k 
wonderfully and gave the frame a real 
artistic appearance. He then gave the 
whole work two or three codts of thin 
shellac varnish, and rubbed the whole 
down with finely powdered pumice stone 
applied with a clean cloth and water. 
The frame being finished, Amy, Eobert's 
sister, undertook to furnish a picture to 
fill the frame. She had some knowledge 
of drawing, not much to be sure, but just 
enough to be able to illustrate a flower, a 
spray, or a simple landscape, and her 
