When brick ovens are employed they must be lined with sheet-iron, and in these very rare circumstances where gas is not available, the stove can be heated with coal or wood, which will, of course, involve a total alteration in the structural arrangements.  I have not given the details here, as I do not think the necessity will ever arise for their use, and for the same reason I have refrained from giving the particulars for heating by steam and electricity, or the other methods which have been adopted by various workers, as there is no question but that a gas stove or oven, as described, is about the best and handiest for jobbers or amateurs.

MODERN JAPANNING AND ENAMELLING STOVES.

The modern japanning and enamelling stove consists of a compartment capable of being heated to any desired temperature, say 100 deg. to 400 deg.  F., and at the same time, except as regards ventilation, capable of being hermetically sealed so as to prevent access of dust, soot, and dirt of all kinds to mar the beauty and lustre of the object being enamelled or japanned.  Such a stove may be heated—­

1.  By a direct coal, coke, wood, peat, or gas fire (which surrounds the inner isolated chamber) (Fig. 5).

2.  By heated air.

3.  By steam or hot-water pipes, coils of which circulate round the interior of the stove or under the floor.

Such ovens may be either permanent, that is, built into masonry, or portable.

[Illustration:  Fig. 5.—­Greuzburg’s Japanning Oven.]

1. Stoves heated by direct fire.—­These were, of course, the form in which japanning ovens were constructed somewhat after the style of a drying kiln.  Fig. 5, Greuzburg’s japanning oven heated on the outside by hot gases from furnace.  The oven is built into brickwork, and the hot gases circulate in the flues between the brickwork and the oven, and its erection and the arrangement of the heating flues are a bricklayer’s job.  Coke containing much sulphur is objectionable as a fuel for enamel stoves Mr. Dickson emphasizes this very forcibly.  He says:  “In the days when stoves were heated by coke furnaces, and the heat distributed by the flues, the principal trouble was the escape of fumes of sulphur which caused dire disaster to all the enamels by entering into their composition and preventing their ever drying, not to speak of hardening.  I have known enamels to be in the stoves with heat to 270 deg. for two and three days, and then be soft.  The sulphur also caused the enamels to crack in a peculiar manner, much like a crocodile skin, and work so affected could never be made satisfactory, for here again we come back to the first principle, that if the foundation be not good, the superstructure can never be permanent.  The enamels, being permeated with sulphur and other products from the coke, could never be made satisfactory, and the only way was to clean it all off.  The other principal troubles are the blowing of the work in air bubbles, which is caused mainly by the heat being too suddenly applied to the articles, but these are very small matters to the experienced craftsman.”