There is no other means convenient. Gold is more pliable when warmed.
A little steel-pointed erasing-pin is a useful instrument to pick up specks or dust, if they accumulate before the paint is dry. A home-made one will answer the same purpose. Select a fine cambric needle, a no. 9 and insert it by the eye end in a ceder brush-handle, having about half of it exposed. These trifles all help to make good work easy.
Another dust-scraper, a steel blade, Shap on both sides, terminating to a point, is of value to the china-painter. ( cut No. 22.)
Three color erasers, one curved to reach around handles and other crooked, inaccessible places, are used sometimes for what their names suggest. Note from me...these are what they use to use to get rid of ink on paper when handwriting was done with ink.
Hydroflouric acid is a valuable adjunct, but to great caution cannot be exercised in regard to it. It is a most powerful acid, and exceedingly dangerous, destroying everything with which it comes in contact. One puts his personal safety in jeopardy every time it is handled. If dropped upon the hand, it will produce the most excruciating torture until its power is exhausted, which some times requires several days. Amputation has sometimes been necessary. This acid come in rubber bottles, as it would eat through glass ; and, as a precautionary measure against accidents, rubber gloves should be worn when it is used.
