RERAMIC STUDIO 
163 
ANSWERS TO INQUIRIES 
Bet. — White calf is delightful to work on, but he sure that you buy 
Sumach tanned skins, the alum tanned skin turns yellow, as soon as water 
touches it. Cow hide can be more deeply tooled than calf. 
E. B. — Knives for cutting leather can be bought from almost any large 
hardware dealer and cost from twenty-five to fifty cents. 
C. S. R.— Zins.ser Bros., 197 WilUams St., New York, sell a laquer for 
l(>ather. There are different laquers for metal. Banana oil is one of them, 
I his k>aves a thin skin on the object laquered and excludes the air; hut why 
use a la(|uer? there is nothing that gives such soft mellow tones as atmosphere. 
C. A. I). — For toole,d leather work you will need some cowhide or calf- 
skin. (The cowhide is the heavier of the two, so more suitable for heavy tool- 
ing and carving.) Some small wedge shaped steel tools forouthning, different 
sizes, two or three background tools, a hannner and a stone to work on, a piece 
of marble will do. For instruction in this work look up Crafts Dept., May 
is,sue, 1903. 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
H. M. P. — -For pink, use Orst a thin wash of Pompadour and in the second 
fire finish with Rose. Few pinks will come out of the fire without purplish 
tones if overfired. If your Dresden Yellow conies out with black specks and 
no other color does the same, we would say something is wrong with the color 
and you had better throw it away and buy a new one, if it comes out in the 
other colors we would think the fault was "in the china or that the iron firing 
pot needed whitewash to prevent particles of iron spitting off on to the china. 
We can suggest no remedy unless it is possible to make an all over pattern of 
gold and enamel to cover the spots. If your gold comes off' in burnishing it is 
either underfired or a very poor quality of gold. 
Mrs. Vj. B. 1). — The article on figure painting in last month's K. S. applies 
equally as well to minature painting in mineralcolors, the process is exactlv 
the same. 
R- R. — If your lustre comes spotted from the kiln, it is due to one of 
several reasons. If the spotting is due to too much turpentine in the out- 
Ihiing either use less turpentine or fire the outline before putting on the lustre. 
The spotting might be caused by dampness on the china from the hands; it is 
best to handle freshly dried lustre with an old silk handkerchief, use this to 
dust off the piece before firing, which will also prevent spots. 
BLUE AND WHITE PLATES -EMILY F. PEACOCK 
USE for the first fire grey blue colors all over the plate. For 
the second fire a second coat of grey blue over the rim 
only. For the third fire, use a medium dark blue "flowing 
enamel in the background design, for the inner line, and on the 
outside edge of the plates. These border designs could be 
adapted to metal, for bowls and trays especially where etching 
is used. Also for carving in low relief on wood, for bread 
boards. 
