redit under the varnish,
when you arrive at that stage. Before that, however, we have to
consider the cutting of the scroll.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SCROLL.
On plate 19 you will find the outline of a scroll I use generally. I
will employ the original from which this was taken now, and mark on
a piece of old sycamore the exact representation of it.
The thickness of the wood must be one and eleven-sixteenths of an
inch, ten inches in length--and broad enough to allow the outline to
be properly cut for further operation. After I get this cut exactly
by a band saw, I place the outline on the wood cut for the scroll,
and with a sharp-pointed, hard pencil, prick the holes where the
volute has to come on to the sides, both of them. After that, on the
face of the wood--that is to say, the front, as though looking at
the fingerboard, I mark at four-and-a-quarter inches from end of the
head, which is to be the end of peg-box, and three inches from that,
the narrow end of said box that is to be cut. Then I take centre of
narrow end and mark off seven-sixteenths of an inch--width of said
end, five-eighths of an inch for broad end. Then at five and
five-eighths of an inch from broad end of peg-box, I take centre of
extreme end of wood, here to be one and three-eighths of an inch
when ready for the fingerboard afterwards, and I divide it, making a
distinctive mark as to breadth and centre. Then, allowing full
three-sixteenths of an inch for cheeks of peg-box, I draw two lines,
one on either side of centre line, from end of wood to head, so that
I just shall catch outer side of each cheek of peg-box that is to
be, and which, running on to where crosses the nose of the scroll,
gives a width there of bare nine-sixteenths of an inch. Afterwards I
mark the three-sixteenths for cheeks of peg-box.
This is all I can mark at present, until I cut with the saw and with
the chisels, as shown (figs. 21 and 22), I can now trace lines ready
for manipulation of the volutes and the fluting. That of the volutes
is my first business. The lines denoting the ascending spirals, and
the pencil dots not yet touched, are my guides, and, with small hand
saw, No. 30, I cut very carefully, by a dot at a time just low
enough to touch the spiral line at its junction, cutting the bit
away sideways, of course, just by the said line, and then a small
piece more, until I arrive at the end of where the spiral ceases, at
its base; but now that the volute is
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