The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-04-03
Homemade BoOk-Shelves.

AMONG the objects that are most easily
made, and that afford the greatest con
venience, are book shelves. When fami
ly possesses a hundred volumes or So
and most families own as many as this
the books are a source of constant an
noyance. When they are allowed to Ii,
on their sides on tables, if we wish to con
suit one we are frequently obliged to tos
over the whole of them; they accumulate
dust, and get shaken, soiled and injured
generally, all which might be avoided b,
the use OF few simple shelves, and these
may be easily made of very cheap ma
terial and very simple construction. Tn,
best material is pine, since it is cheap ant
easil ~ worked. 1t is not generally knowr
that plain pine board, if stained anG
vanished, may be made to look very like
mahogany, rosewood, or black-walnut
and the process of staining is so simple
that any housewife can perform it. we
know a lady who has stained and var.
dozens of pine shelves that her husband
has fitted up during his leisure moments
and to-day they look as if they were ma.
| hogany.
TO stain shelves a mahogany-color
take pound or two of logwood chips and
boil them in water, so as to make a Strong
| decoction. We have found that this gives
better results than can be OBJ aimed by
using extract of logwood. Wet the board
thoroughly with this decoction; when
dry it will have reddish-ycllow color,
and must then be vanished with what is
known as spirits of shellac varnish.
Ibis varnish can be bought ready
made at the paint shops, but we
prefer to make it by dissolving good shell
lac in alcohol. Put a quantity of good
shellac into a wide-mouthed bottle, cover
it with alcohol, cork the bottle tightly,
and let it stand until the shellac is dis
solved. No skill is required in the appli-
cation of this varnish, which dries very
rapidly, and forms hard glossy coating
on the surface Of the board. When dry
the shelf must be carefully smoothed off
with sand-paper and again vanished.
The second coat will give very bright
appearance to the shelf, but if we sand
paper it before applying the first coat the
staining will probably be removed in
spots and the shelf will not look well.
An application of the sand-paper after the
second coat will still further improve the
finish of the wood; but this, of course,
involves third coat of varnish. By add
ing the least quantity of alkali. such as
washing soda, to the logwood decoction,
the pine will be made to resemble rose
wood. In all cases, however, the shelves
Wv MY dCiulIC llSil pl OpcI lOue IOr SOME
months; but if well done-that is, if the
decoction be strong, the varnish thor
oughly applied, and all roughness re-
moved by means of the sand-paper-at
the end of a year nine persons out of ten
will take them for mahogany or rosewood,
as the case may be. Every fiber of the
pine shows so that the grainis as apparent
as if the shelves were made of hard wood
and polished. The appearance is, there
fore, greatly superior to that of any ordi-
nary painted work, and the process is so
simple that no intelligent housekeeper
need dread failure. We have now in
mind a set of shelves prepared in this way
by lady whose husband, although not
mechanic, fitted up the woodwork as an
during the winter evenings,
and they compare favorably with much of
the cabinet-work that we find in market.
.HaTper's Ba=ar.