omogeneous rigid part of the structure.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM 31.]

[Illustration: DIAGRAM 32.]

To ensure complete success in all the foregoing operations, every tool
in use must be well sharpened, and all the guide lines accurately drawn.
Part of the neck left rough and projecting beyond the button may be
left for future manipulation, but the joints that are to receive
glue--if done by a workman of skill and experience--will fit almost
air tight. With regard to this, the parts likely to give the amateur
most trouble will be the exact fitting of the flat opposing surfaces
of the root or squared end of the neck or graft with the socket. It
will be necessary to get a perfectly flat surface. In the first place,
glass papering must be avoided, not from unsuitableness of material,
for in that respect it is a temptation, but from the difficulty of
regulating the pressure of the hand; with the exercise of the utmost
care in handling the glass paper, even when it is backed by a piece
of hard wood, there will be found, when the test comes, a rotundity
of surface that was deemed impossible under the circumstances. Careful
scraping of the surfaces must be chiefly relied on for exactness. As
good a mode of proceeding as any is as follows--after the first roughing
into shape and then flat chiselling has been done to as great a nicety
as possible, all the irregularities--there are sure to be some--can
be worked down with the edge of a straight square file, used very
steadily and crossways repeatedly. This done sufficiently and tested
with some hard and truly cut substance, metal preferably, will be an
exactly flat surface for working upon the final or finished surface.
The next thing used will be a carefully sharpened and keen edged steel
scraper. To put this tool into proper order for the purpose, it must
be sharpened on a hone, not exactly at right angles, as the first
impulse would suggest. The hone, or stone, must be quite flat and unworn.
If done carefully, a nice level edge will be perceptible along its
course, but it is not yet at its best. Placing it on a bed of hard wood,
or evenly shaped mass of iron, projecting over and held firmly in
position, a good stout brad-awl may be passed along from end to end,
keeping the awl perfectly flat on the horizontal surface. The scraper
may now be turned over and process repeated, but not in the same manner
or angle, for the awl will be held vertically with the handle downwards
and