70 
RERAMIC STUDIO 
one inch in the center, not forgetting to anneal the silver 
whenever it sounds hard. If the rim of tea strainer should 
buckle, straighten it with a wood hammer. The design on the 
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rim can either be pierced, etched, or repoussed, in any case it 
must be put on first with a steel point. If it is pierced, a hole 
must be drilled for the saw wherever there is to be a space, and 
the design carefully sawed out. All the edges should be made 
smooth with a small half round finishing file, and the handle 
part slightly repoussed from the back. 
The last step is to drill the holes for the strainer, find the 
center of this, and make several circles for a guide. A pattern 
can be made in the strainer, or simply circles of holes. Before 
drilling always start the hole with a steel punch, so that the 
drill will not slip. 
The smaller tea strainer by Miss E. J. Pratt is very at- 
tractive, and simpler to make, not having a rim to deal with. 
It is started in the same way as the large one, and finished by 
hammering over a steel ball the right size. The side pieces are 
pierced and soldered on. 
A frame of silver wire combining the handle and rest, 
soldered on a shape of this kind, as m Fig. 3, gives a quaint 
finish to a tea strainer. 
MATERIALS USED 
A piece of silver 2 inches square, 22 gauge, also a strip i^ x 
2, 24 gauge for the side pieces, and about 10 inches of silver 
wire, gauge 18. 
Tools, as given before and added, round nose pliers to 
adjust the wire, a steel ball, a round faced hammer. For the 
soldering, a piece of charcoal, solder and flux, either borax or 
amberine. 
ANSWERS TO INQUIRIES 
C. K. — To clean jewelry that has no chased work, jewelers moisten the 
surface with a brush like that in a mucilage bottle dipped in alcohol that has 
a few drops of ammonia for every half pint of alcohol. Then with another 
brush they apply a little finely powdered whiting and polish off with a jeweler's 
brush . When the jewelry is chased or set with real gems the powder is washed 
off with soap and water and the articles are dried by putting them into fine 
sawdust. Stones that are in a closed setting must not be washed. 
Basketry-^Coiled basketry is a type of basket work in which a foundation 
of hard or soft material, arranged in a spiral, is held together by means of 
over and over sewing. 
Imbricated ornament, is coiled basketry in which a strip of soft material 
is folded back and forth, over the stitches, over-lapping like shingles on a 
roof or tlie folds in knife plaiting. Hikitat and Fraser River basketry are 
imbricated. 
In the coiled basket bowls of the Coahvilla Indians of Southern Cali- 
fornia, the cleaned fibre from the leaves of the Agave deserti is used to form 
the first few turns of the coil, which is then continued with grass stems. 
Miss L. S. — Velour especially made for stencil work and burning conies 
in twenty seven and fifty inch widths, with a plain linen back. It ranges in 
price from twenty-five cents a yard up. 
E. Allen — Carbon paper comes by the sheet and in several colors, wliite 
or light yellow is best for vise on dark surfaces. It should always be kept from 
the air, exposure renders it useless. 
Mrs. T. R. — A hard typewriter's eraser is a good thing to keep your 
platinum point clean, if the point is clean and hot, there should not be any 
trouble with the etching. 
Basketry — Some aniline dyes can be used successfully in basketry. 
Always use the mordant properly, and after the material is dyed wash it in 
strong soapsuds to take out any color likely to fade. In the Diamond dyes 
tlie black is good as it is. The orange is very strong. Light red can be made 
more scarlet by adding scarlet, and darker by adding a little black. Bright 
green can be made bluer by adding blue, greyer by adding a little red, and 
