§ 131 Burnishing.
Burnishers of steel, agate, or bloodstone can be bought at the shops where scratch brushes are sold, and are used to produce the same brightening effect as can be got by scratch-brushing. The same solutions are employed, but rather stronger, and the burnisher is swept over the surface so as to compress the deposited metal. Burnishing is rather an art, but when well done gives a harder and more brilliant (because smoother) surface than the scratch brush. On the whole, steel burnishers are the most convenient if in constant use.
If the burnishing tools have to lie about, steel is apt to rust, unless carefully protected by being plunged in quicklime or thickly smeared with vaseline, and the least speck of rust is fatal to a burnisher. In any case the steel requires to be occasionally repolished by rouge and water on a bit of cloth or felt. The process of burnishing is necessarily somewhat slow and tedious, and as a rule is not worth troubling about except in cases where great permanence is required.
The burnisher is moved over the work somewhat like a pencil with considerable pressure, and care is taken to make the strokes as uniform in direction as possible; otherwise the surface looks non-uniform, and has to be further polished by tripoli, whitening, etc., before it is presentable.