ubstance, but
from lack of proper management. Different varieties of wood have been
tried, a great drawback being the contraction when the glue dries; this
is markedly the case when a hard wood, powdered by glass-paper, is used.
The granulations and their hardness are also objectionable, and if
ground up too small, contraction to a greater degree takes place, and
the repairer's object is defeated. Long experience has shown that the
disintegrated fibres of soft pine, not powdered, offer the best
security against contraction, it can be made strong or weak according
to the thickness of glue used, is always at hand, and on the whole gives
the least trouble. It requires little or no colouring, and moreover
approaches nearest in character--or can be made to do so--to the
surrounding material. If there is a selection possible, the well known
soft grained American pine should in preference be used. There is a
good and a bad way of managing the process to ensue. To roughly seize
a chump of wood and begin filing it away anyhow, collecting the residue
and making a rough paste, will bring disappointment, as sure as houses
built with wrongly mixed mortar. To put method into the matter, a piece
of clear, knotless, soft, grained wood should be obtained and cut to
a cylindrical form (diagram 19). A flat file of rather fine
texture--this may be according to the size of the instrument to be
repaired--should be worked against it at right angles. The file (not
glass or sand-paper) must not be of the toothed kind, but grooved. The
shower of particles sent off during the action of filing, will consist
of a number of minute silky fibres, which, of course, must be collected
together, placed upon a clean porcelain dish, or palette, and worked
up with glue--strong--for filling spaces in the maple, and weaker, if
used for the pine of the front table. It can be tucked into the crevices
as required by the end of a small, worn, or pointed knife. Some portions
will remain above the surface and, in fact, will not go in completely,
owing to the fibrous, or threadiness of the mass, but this constitution
is the safeguard against its contraction, the glue in drying clinging
round the fibres instead of to itself. When dry and hard the projecting
portions can be neatly levelled off. If, as will sometimes happen, a
little hole or two can be perceived, perhaps under magnifying power,
the process can be repeated on a minute scale. By attention to the above
ther