A Thousand and One Formulas

by Sidney Gernsback

Back in 1920 people were hot to set up their own laboratories and invent something and become rich. Experimenter Publishing Company published books and magazines to whet their appetite. They reprinted the best information from the magazines in this book.

Here you get formulas on cements and glues, compositions of all kinds, glass and glass working, inks, leather polishes, metal-craft, perfumes, soaps, photography, blue-print and other papers, plating, pyrotechny, polishes and stains, varnishes and paints, cleaning compounds, wood-craft, chemical lab hints, mechanical lab hints, electrical lab hints, miscellaneous formulas and an appendix.

Not everything here is useful in my opinion, and some of it is downright dangerous. Some of this looks like it came out of the Boy Mechanic books. Learn how to convert coin silver into pure silver, formulas for solders, lithographic ink, how to make a gasoline torch, recipes for killing flies, proper use of sulphuric acid, hand grenades ???, flashlight powder like the old photographers once used, how to make gas (you need a book for this??), homemade carbon crucible, methods to copper-plate carbon motor brushes, and on and on.

A lot of this is quaint, and not directly useful. It's for kitchen chemists. But a few of the formulas and ideas are worth the entire price of the book. If you're trying to build a master reference library of unusual secret formulas, this book is certainly worth considering. Check it out. It's been five or six years since I last offered this, I believe. I wouldn't have reprinted it if I didn't think it had merit. Fun reading if nothing else. Get a copy! 51/2 x 81/2 paperback 160 pages

No. 20811 ... $9.95