For this purpose, provide a plate of copper, rather larger than the design that is to be engraved, and may be about one sixteenth of an inch thick; planish by rubbing it, first, directly length-wise, and afterwards breadth-wise with a piece of pumice-stone, which may be dipped occasionally in a mixture of one part nitric acid, with six or seven parts water. Then wash the copper with clear water, and rub it with an oil stone that has a plane surface; and then polish it with a piece of charcoal, that has been ignited to redness and quenched in cold water. Afterwards burnish the copper by rubbing it with polished steel. Lay a piece of transparent paper on the design that is to be engraved, and trace the principal lines with a lead pencil.

Then brush over the copy or tracing with dry red ochre, and having rubbed the copper plate with a piece of bees-wax, lay the red side of the tracing on the plate; then with a smooth iron point, trace the same lines again, that they may thus be transferred to the plate by means of the red ochre and wax. Take up the paper and trace the lines on the plate with a needle, thus scoring the lines slightly on the copper.

Then warm the plate and wipe off the wax, or wash it off with spirits of turpentine, and rub the plate with fine dry whiting. The next instrument to proceed with is the graver; consisting of a blade of steel about three inches long, which is fixed in a convenient handle like an awl. The form of the graver should be triangular, or between a triangle and lozenge, having two sides plane and the other round or swelled; and should taper regularly from the handle to the point, or nearly so, but the point must be ground off obliquely so that the edge may extend a little farther than the back; and the edge should rise a little rounding towards the point. It is very essential that the edge and point of the graver should be kept very sharp.