54 
HO USE & GARDEN 
Stop Freezing in Your Garage 
A Stewart Garage Heater will prevent ‘‘freezing your car” save repair bills and 
make your garage a comfortable place to work in. It will give you warm water 
all the year round for washing your car. 
If you are handy at all, you can install it yourself. There is a Stewart for 
every type and size of private garage—$21 up. A request will bring our 
Garage Heater Catalog. Before cold weather sets in 
Put in the Garage Heater 
Made by Fuller & Warren Co., 130 Madison St., Troy, N. Y., Since 1832. 
New York Office: 254 Water Street. 
Does Your Kitchen 
Need a New Range? 
If it does, consider this two-fuel 
Stewart with ash-chute to basement. 
Double oven, double capacity. Many 
others to choose from in our catalog. 
If interested add a line to your request 
for our Garage Heater Catalog. 
Special information for Architects. 
Made by FULLER & WARREN CO. 
130 Madison St., Troy, N. Y., Since 1832. 
New York Office: 254 Water Street. 
Ash Chute to Cellar 
Vilia d'Eslc, Tivoli, Italy 
T HE ITALIANS of the Renais¬ 
sance designed gardens that 
delight those who love the 
beautiful and baffle those who.have 
tried to surpass them. Their stat¬ 
uary and garden ornaments with 
rare exceptions are unrivalled mas¬ 
terpieces that lend themselves as 
well today as in the past to the 
adornment of the formal garden. 
Our unusual collection of models 
made of Pompeian stone cast in 
perfect reproduction of these Old 
World masterpieces affords you the 
opportunity to make your garden a 
source of constant pleasure. 
Our handsome illustrated cata¬ 
logue of vases, fountains, sun-dials, 
statuary and benches sent free on 
request. 
To those desiring marble orna¬ 
ments, we offer special facilities, in¬ 
suring reasonable prices and prompt 
service. 
THE ERKINS STUDIOS 
Factory : Astoria, L. I. 226 Lexington Ave., N. Y. 
Largest Manufacturers of Ornamental Stone 
Finish and Care of Old Furniture 
(Continued from page 40) 
or whatever has been put on the 
wood, scrape it thoroughly with a 
metal or glass scraper. Scrape with 
the grain of the wood and hold the 
scraper at an angle of about 45° to 
60°, the top inclined forward in the 
direction of the stroke. Then sand¬ 
paper the surface absolutely smooth 
with fine sandpaper. By applying am¬ 
monia at its full strength, remove 
varnish from all carving, corners or 
other places that cannot be reached 
with the scraper. The loosened dead 
varnish can then be wiped off with a 
soft woolen rag or piece of cheese¬ 
cloth. Ammonia, of course, could be 
used over the whole surface, instead 
of scraping and sandpapering it, but 
the fumes are both unpleasant to the 
worker and apt to darken or stain the 
wood. Wherever the ammonia stains 
the wood, the stain should be re¬ 
moved or bleached off by an applica¬ 
tion of oxalic acid dissolved in hot 
water. Use about two tablespoonfuls 
to a pint of hot water. Do not let the 
oxalic acid solution remain on the 
wood any longer than is absolutely 
necessary to remove discoloration, 
otherwise it will bleach too much. 
There is nothing more desirable 
than a good wax finish, both for 
beauty and serviceableness. It per¬ 
mits the grain and color of the wood 
to be seen to full advantage, avoids 
the vulgar glitter of varnish and is 
easy to maintain in good condition. 
To get a satisfactory finish of this 
sort, observe the following direc¬ 
tions : After the wood is thoroughly 
cleaned and all dust removed, apply 
linseed oil. Unboiled or raw linseed 
oil may be used thinned with benzine. 
The oil by itself is too heavy and 
thick and has a tendency to become 
gummy. The benzine gives it the 
proper consistency and accelerates 
drying. After the piece has stood for 
six or eight hours or, better still, for 
twenty-four hours, wipe off every re¬ 
maining trace of oil or “sweat” from 
the surface with a soft woolen rag or 
piece of cheesecloth. The oil feeds 
the wood. 
Next apply the wax, a little at a 
time, working it into the surface with 
a stiff brush. Brush first with the 
grain and then across it. After the 
brushing process, apply a very little 
wax at a time with the woolen rag or 
cheesecloth and rub it thoroughly, not 
too hard, but briskly so as to generate 
a proper friction. It is well to rub 
first in a circular spot and then with 
the grain as a final finish. The whole 
secret of a good wax finish lies in 
the rubbing and plenty of it, and this 
is just where the difficulty with the 
artisans generally comes in. The or¬ 
dinary workman is none too fond of 
using “elbow grease,” and an abun¬ 
dance of that old fashioned commod¬ 
ity is a sine qua non for a wax finish 
of the proper kind. 
The wax may be one of the com¬ 
mercial preparations in the form of a 
paste made for polishing furniture or 
floors, or else one may make it ac¬ 
cording to the following old recipe 
and keep a supply of it on hand for 
polishing the furniture from time to 
time: “Melt a lump of beeswax of 
sufficient size in a pint of turpentine 
over a slow fire. If a reddish color is 
desired, a little alkanet root in a 
cheesecloth bag may be suspended for 
a while in the mixture. When cool 
it should be of a thick creamy con¬ 
sistency.” The foregoing method of 
oiling and waxing may be applied 
with equal success to mahogany, wal¬ 
nut or any of the other usual cabinet 
woods except oak. If one is fortu¬ 
nate enough to get a piece of really 
old oak, great care must be taken in 
making repairs and supplying any 
missing or broken bits. Anything 
added must be carefully stained to 
match the rest of the wood. Do not 
scrape it, for that will destroy its 
color, but oil it and wax it, as pre¬ 
viously directed. The traditional old 
English practice of “feeding the oak 
with oil and polishing it with wax” 
may be relied upon for good results. 
Another way of finishing walnut, 
mahogany and woods other than oak, 
after the preparatory scraping and 
sandpapering, is to apply several coats 
of shellac, rubbing down each suc¬ 
cessive coat to a smooth dull finish 
with powdered pumice. Dampen the 
cheesecloth rag or rubber with water, 
dip it in the powdered pumice and 
rub. If the surface is large, the pow¬ 
dered pumice may be dusted over it 
and sprinkled and then rubbed. Rub 
first in circular patches and then in 
longer strokes. Still another method 
of finishing is the following quoted 
from Sheraton’s own directions: 
“The general mode of polishing plain 
cabinet work is . . . with brick- 
dust and oil, in which case the oil is 
either plain linseed or stained with 
alkanet root. If the wood be hard, 
the oil should be left standing upon it 
for a week, but if soft, it may be pol¬ 
ished in two days. The brick-dust 
and oil should then be rubbed to¬ 
gether, which in a little time will be¬ 
come a putty under the rubbing cloth, 
in which state it should be kept under 
the cloth as much as possible, for this 
kind of putty will infallibly secure a 
fine polish by continued rubbing; and 
the polisher should by all means 
avoid the application of fresh brick- 
dust, by which the unskilful hand 
will frequently ruin his work instead 
of improving it; and to prevent the 
necessity of supplying himself with 
fresh brick-dust he ought to lay on a 
great quantity at first, carefully sifted 
through a gauze stocking; and he 
should notice if the oil be too dry on 
the surface of the work before he 
begin, for in this case it should be re¬ 
oiled, that it may compose a sufficient 
quantity of the polishing substance, 
which should never be altered after 
the polishing is commenced, and 
which ought to continue till the wood 
by repeated friction becomes warm, 
at which time it will finish in a bright 
polish, and is finally to be cleaned off 
with the bran of wheaten flour.” 
Whatever merits the shellac finish on 
the “brick-dust and oil” finish, ac¬ 
cording to Sheraton’s formula, may 
have, it will be found that the wax 
finish is the more satisfactory. 
To clean or polish furniture, 
whether finished with shellac or some 
other polish or wax, go over it with 
linseed oil, either double boiled or 
else raw, thinned with benzine, and a 
soft woolen rag. Apply the oil spar¬ 
ingly. After leaving it for a minute 
or two, polish with a larger piece of 
the same sort of rag by brisk, but not 
hard rubbing. The wood should be 
polished, not scrubbed. With large 
pieces of furniture it is best to oil 
only a small portion at a time, polish 
it and then go on to another portion. 
All the oil must either be rubbed 
in or rubbed off. None of it should 
be left. Even a very little residuum 
will soon form a gummy coagulation 
and spoil the surface. To ensure the 
removal of every particle of oil, 
dampen the palm of the hand with 
alcohol, touch a soft woolen rag that 
has not had any oil on it to the damp¬ 
ened palm and go quickly over the 
surface that has just been polished 
with oil. This should be done with 
the greatest care and can scarcely be 
entrusted to a servant, for a little too 
much alcohol will prove disastrous. 
This method of cleaning or several 
repetitions of it often brings back a 
(Continued on page 56) 
