It has been quite busy chez Calash, with What Cheer Day a little over a week away, the Warren Commission happening tomorrow, and various and sundry other things to do, like get a Young Giant into college. But results were promised and results you shall have.
Despite my lack of chemistry knowledge, I made and used the pewter-cleaning liquor with some success.
The pewter plate spent some time sitting on its edge in a basin of the liquor, and the line is pretty clearly visible in the first image. The second shows the plate after being cleaned with the liquor and a wool rag. It’s better than it was, but there are still more experiments to do. I’d apply rottenstone, but the container hasn’t made it back to New England yet, the posts being poor and the roads infernal.
different class levels
As the silver bowl demonstrates, rottenstone on its own is remarkably effective at removing polish. It is certainly a fairly readily-available, non-toxic, period method of cleaning metals (andirons and fenders to plates and punch bowls) that can be easil;y employed.
This look seemed achievable, once a few compromises were made. To begin with, I scrapped the notion of replicating a silk taffeta gown: too dear for so short a time. I felt some comfort in this decision as I think the sleeves indicate a rather later date than 1824, and I am, in fact, striving for an Arcade-opening-appropriate dress suitable for about 1826.
So, what to do? Well, thank goodnessmen like to shoot at plywood and win feathers. My plan is to wear the brown striped gown with the existing belt and accessorize with a new antique lace pelerine-collar type device, I also plan [hope to] make a new extreme jellyfish cap and possibly a new bonnet.
I have the supplies. Do I have the time and will power? Stay tuned for the next installment of, “Yes, I may be overbooked.”
Some people will tell you I overextend myself, and while those people may be correct, my enthusiasms compel me to do more, try more, travel more, and to that end I found myself preparing for an event by turning my 1962 Ossining kitchen into an experimental laboratory.
I was taken by Hannah Glasse’s receipt for cleaning pewter, copper, and tin in her section for The Scullion, so of course I had to try it. It’s simple enough: boil wood ash with unslaked lime for half an hour, let cool, and pour off the clear liquid. Easy-peasy, until you realize you have forgotten your high school chemistry, the Young Giant is not at home, and google searches for lime turn up too wholesome uses and unsavory quantities.
Happily, a more scientific brain than my own pointed out potash/pearl ash/potassium carbonate, which Amazon can provide in small quantities. Wood ash proved a little more challenging. Happily for me, I am one of those East Coast foodie fools with a backyard grill and a fondness for hardwood charcoal, so an overdue chore later, I had an enamel kettle of ash.
I did do a little sifting
to end up with finer ash
The receipt calls for “a pail” of wood ash to a “half- pail” unslak’d lime, boiled in four pails of soft water. Since “pails” is a general sort of term, I decided to use the quantity of wood ash I scavenged as the approximate measure of a pail, figuring that proportions mattered more than actual grams or liters. I have resigned myself to the fact that this is more art than science. Four pails of soft water included the remains of a few gallons of water stockpiled for hurricane preparedness years ago, bolstered with water from the tap.
Pail, schmail.
Fortunately, art did not turn into science gone wrong. The boiling was rather placid, considering, and dissolved the fine ash and the potash. I filtered the liquid mixture through a screen (ok, the spatter screen for my frying pan) to ensure that when I poured off the clear, it would be as clear as possible.
Boiling. Not to stinky
sacrificed to a good cause
By the time it had cooled, I had fished out appropriate containers into which I could “pour off the clear.” This recipe, seat-of-the-pants as it is, makes a fair quantity, a mason jar of which I have left with the Drunk Tailor so that he might better clean his officer’s pewter and copper, because, yes! This does work to brighten silver and copper. Tune in next time for details on getting shiny.
Front and a center: A liquor for cleaning pewter, etc.
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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