GOLD SIZE for burnished gilding is prepared of one pound and a half of tobacco-pipe clay, half an ounce of red chalk, a quarter of an ounce of black lead, forty drops of sweet oil, and three drams of pure tallow; grind the clay, chalk, and black lead, separately, very fine in water; then mix them together, add the oil and tallow, and grind the mixture to a due consistence.
Gold size of japanners may be made by pulverizing gum animi and asphaltum, of each one ounce; red lead, litharge of gold, and umber, of each one ounce and a half, mixing them with a pound of linseed oil, and boiling them, observing to stir them till the whole be incorporated, and appears on growing cold of the consistence of tar: strain the mixture through a flannel, and keep it stopped up in a bottle for use. When it is used, it must be ground with as much vermilion as will give it an opaque body, and diluted with oil of turpentine, so that it may be worked freely with the pencil. A simple preparation consists of one pound of linseed oil and four ounces of gum animi; powder the gum, and mix it gradually with the boiling oil; let it continue to boil till it becomes of the consistence of tar; strain it through a coarse cloth; keep and use it as the other.