CLEANING AND POLISHING STOVES Care of Kitchen Range. — Remove cinders and ashes each morning, brush out the inside of fire box and flues, and brush off the outside with wings or a hair brush; wash off the stove, if greasy, with soda and water and a piece of flannel. Blacken and polish.
Clean steel fittings from rust with sweet oil or kerosene and polish with emery. Clean brass fittings with em ery or bath brick by means of flannel, and polish with chamois. Clean the hearth with hot water and soda by means of a flannel cloth.
Care of Stoves.—The cook stove or range may be kept in good order by a daily brushing or rubbing and by a thorough blacking and polishing once a week.
Cook Stove—To Keep Clean.—Sprin kle a little salt over anything burning on the stove to remove the dirt. Have at hand small sheets of sandpaper to remove whatever adheres.
To Keep the Hands Clean.—Before polishing the stove rub lard under the finger nails.
Dilute the polish in a saucer with water or vinegar, and apply with a common dishwashing mop. Draw over the hand a small paper bag, and pol ish with a flannel or other cloth.
Or use a polishing mitten, but the liquid blacking will work through the polishing mitten and soil the hands, whereas the paper bags can be changed as fast as they become soiled.
If the hands become soiled with blacking, first rub them thoroughly with lard, then wash with soap and water.
Stove Blacking.—Dissolve ounce of alum in 1 gill of soft water. Add 61 pounds of plumbago mixed with 12 ounces of lampblack. Stir vigorously. Stir in l gills of molasses, next bar of white soap dissolved in 3 pints of water, and lastly 1 ounce of glycerin. This is a commercial article which has a great reputation.
Or beat up the whites of 3 eggs and mix in pound of black lead. Dilute with sour beer or ale to the consist ency of cream, and boil gently for 15 or 90 minutes.
Or mix 8 ounces of copperas, 4 ounces of bone black, and 4 ounces of black lead with water to the consist ency of cream.
Or melt 1 pound of hard yellow soap with a little boiling water, and while hot stir in 1 pound of powdered soft coal. Cool, and preserve in tight fruit jars or wide-mouthed bottles for use.
Or mix 4 ounces of black lead with 2 tablespoonfuls of vinegar, 1 tea spoonful of sugar, and a piece of yel low soap the size of a butternut. Melt the soap with gentle heat and reduce while hot to the consistency of cream with coffee strained through a cheese cloth. Stir in teaspoonful of alum.
Or use vinegar instead of water for mixing any of the above. The work of polishing will not be so hard, and the polish will last longer.
Or mix with oil of turpentine. This prevents and removes rust.
Or add a little sugar or alum to any of the above; or a little benzine or naphtha to help cut the grease. If these are added the stove must be pol ished cold.
To Apply Polish.—Apply stove pol ish in liquid form by softening with a little vinegar or turpentine, and spread on with a dishwashing mop or wide painter's brush.
Or rub a piece of flannel with wet yellow soap. Dip it into dry pow dered blacking and apply. This saves friction and makes the labor of polish ing much easier.
Or, if a stove is much covered with grease, mix powdered blacking with gasoline and rub it on rapidly with flannel. Clean the stove thoroughly as you go, as the gasoline evaporates quickly. Of course the stove must be entirely cold.
To Polish Stoves.—Polishing cloths may be purchased, or a substitute may be made from any old glove or mitten by sewing to the palm several thick nesses of outing flannel, velveteen, or a piece of sheepskin with the wool on.
Or polish the stove with newspapers.
Or take a large paper bag, insert the hand part way, and crumple up the remainder to polish with.
Or use the paper that electric-light globes are cleaned with. This can be bought of any electrical plant, and will give a fine polish as well as econo mize blacking.