crevices.

To prepare it. To one part of melted beeswax add one part of
turpentine. Mix and cool. It can be bought prepared, as, Bridgeport
Wood Finishing Company's "Old Dutch Finish," Butcher's Wax, Johnson's
Wax, and others.

Process. Rub the wax evenly over the surface with a stiff brush or the
fingers. Let it dry for some hours, and then rub with a cloth: flannel
or a piece of felt is best. Put on several coats, leaving the work
over night between coats. Rub often with a warm cloth.

(c) _Varnishes._ The function of varnishes is to cover wood with
a hard, transparent coating that is non-porous and impervious to
moisture. There is a great range among them, from thin, easily worn,
dull finishes to durable, strong, and highly polished coatings called
"rubbing varnishes." The polished surface can be secured only by much
labor thru the application of successive thin coats of good varnish,
carefully rubbed down.

Varnish may be applied to wood, stained, painted, or in its natural
condition as well as to metal, leather, paper, and various other
substances. A good varnish should be adhesive, that is, it should
cling firmly to the surface to which it is applied; it should
be elastic, so as not to crack on account of the expansion and
contraction of the material to which it is applied; it should dry in
a reasonable time; it should be limpid so as to flow easily in
application; it should be transparent and brilliant when polished; and
it should be durable. The necessary conditions for all good
varnishing are a perfectly smooth, even, filled surface of dry wood, a
temperature of about 70 deg. and no dust in the air.

In general, there are two classes of varnish, based on the character
of the solvent, (1) Spirit varnishes and (2) Oil varnishes.

(1) Spirit varnishes are sometimes made with copal resins dissolved in
some spirit, as one of the alcohols, benzine, acetone, etc. They dry
with great rapidity owing to the volatilization of the solvent spirit,
leaving a coat of pure resin of great hardness and brilliance, but
one which is likely to crack and scale when exposed. They are not much
used. Shellac is the most common and the most useful of the spirit
varnishes. Its basis is resin lac, a compound resinous substance
exuded from an East India scale insect (_Carteria lacca_) found mostly
in the province of Assam. The term "lac" is the same as "lakh" which
means 100,000 and is indicative of the countless hosts of insects