ROD-MAKING. 455 



mandrel. If you want the ferule perfectly straight, round, 

 and true, the mandrel should fit it exactly when it is 

 stretched. 



The mandrel should taper a little for a half inch or so at 

 the end, to enable you to enter it in the end of the ferule. In 

 doing so, drive it in tightly as far as it will go, without 

 straining the ferule, and laying it on an anvil or smooth 

 surface or iron, tap it lightly with your hammer, turning the 

 mandrel the mean while with the left hand. Drive the man- 

 drel in as the ferule is stretched, hammering evenly and 

 turning slowly as the ferule passes over the smaller part 

 of the mandrel, and confine the hammering to that part. 

 The ferule as it is driven on assumes the size, the roundness, 

 and the straightness of the mandrel, and is hardened by the 

 hammering. 



When the ferule has thus been stretched, hardened, and 

 straightened, the mandrel with the ferule fitting tightly on it 

 is put into the lathe and turned down smooth, and to the 

 required thickness, with an ordinary graver ; or it may be 

 finished with a fine flat 'file and emery paper of different 

 degrees of fineness, if you have no such piece of machinery, 

 though it is a laborious operation. A lathe is almost indis- 

 pensable in making a male ferule, that is, a ferule intended 

 to fit into another. 



When I first began to make ferules, I cleansed and made 

 the inside smooth, by wrapping a strip of sand-paper spirally 

 on a round stick, so as to fit the ferule just tight enough to 

 turn in it, and afterwards gave a smoother finish to it by 

 wrapping a piece of emery paper on the same stick. The 

 same contrivance can be used by putting the stick in a lathe 

 and holding the ferule on it with a rag saturated with water 

 to prevent the brass from heating as the stick revolves. 



A male ferule is made in the same manner as just 



