Or dissolve 3 ounces of glue in 2 quarts of soft water. Remove from the stove and stir in 2 pounds of yellow ocher. Apply with a paint brush while hot, and follow with a coat of boiled linseed oil. Let stand over night before walking on it.
Or to give the floor a deep black like ebony, boil 1 pound of logwood chips in 2 quarts of water down to 1 quart, and apply one or two coats with a paint brush. When dry, fol low with a strong solution of sul phate of iron in water. Afterwards, when dry, apply a thin coat of boiled linseed oil, wax, and polish.
Or to 6 quarts of caustic-potash lye made from wood ashes add 1 pound of copperas more or less, to give a light or dark oak shade as de sired, and apply one or more coats with a brush. When dry, varnish the floor, wax, and polish.
Pigment for Stains.—Add any of the following pigments in the form of dry powder at the rate of about 2 heaping tablespoonfuls to the gal lon of stain, to obtain the colors mentioned: To imitate mahogany, use burnt sienna. For black walnut, burnt um ber or Vandyke brown. For cherry, burnt sienna mixed with iron oxide. For yellow, raw sienna, yellow ocher, or raw umber. Or any of the above may be combined freely to form tints or shades as desired. Experi ments may be made by adding the pigments a little at a time and test ing the color from time to time on a piece of board of the same kind of wood as the floor is made of.
Varnish for Stained Floors. Place in a 6-quart saucepan about• 10 ounces of linseed oil. Bring to a boil over a brisk fire, stirring con stantly, and stir in 2 ounces of pure white borate of manganese in very fine powder. Heat separately S pounds of linseed oil to the boiling point, and add it to the first solution in a thin stream, stirring constantly. Continue to heat the mixture as hot as possible without burning. Stir constantly and boil for half an hour. Take off the stove and strain through cheese cloth. Apply one or two coats while hot, and follow when dry with shellac or hard white copal varnish.
Or oil stains may be followed by ordinary shellac varnish with the ad dition of 4 ounces of cold-drawn lin seed oil to each quart of varnish. One
quart of varnish will be required for a floor 12 by 12 or about 150 square feet of surface.
To Clean Stained Floors.—Obtain a quantity of coarse sawdust of non resinous wood free from dust or dirt, and store it in a bin where it will be kept dry and clean. Scatter this sawdust freely over the floor and scrub the floor with it by means of d stiff scrubbing brush, as if using water. The sawdust may then be swept up and burned, and the floor wiped up with a soft cloth drawn over the head of a broom. This is suitable treatment for unpainted, waxed, or varnished floors if much dirt has been tracked in upon them.
Or wring a mop out of kerosene oil and wipe up with this. Use about 1 quart for an ordinary floor. Use for this purpose only refined kero sene of the best quality, but not use it freely on oak, as it tends to darken the wood.
Care of Oil-stained Floors. — An oil-stained floor will not soak up grease or show spots like a bare floor, and will not require scouring. It may be wiped up by means of a mop wrung out in clear warm water, but do not use soft soap, washing powders, or any alkali on an oiled surface, as the alkali will dissolve the oil. Oil-stained floors may be pol ished with wax or turpentine if de sired.
Or the oil stain may be followed by one or more coats of hard white copal or shellac varnish before the wax is added.
To Clean Wood Floors.—Detergents recommended for cleaning kitchen floors and other coarse and unpainted woodwork are caustic potash and soda lyes, soft soap, sand, lime, chloride of lime, ammonia, kerosene, gasoline, and various mixtures of these.
To scrub a wood floor, first take up grease spots. Then apply hot soap suds with a scrubbing brush or mop, rinse with clear water, and wipe dry. Clean and dry a small section of the floor at a time and change the water frequently.
Mops and Pails.—A strong pail fit ted with a small wringer such as is used by janitors of large buildings will be found a great convenience. To save stooping, place this on a chair. Use two mops of soft woolen rags, one of small size for washing the floor, and a larger one for wiping dry.