ROD-MAKING. 447 



coat with a flat camel's-hair brush, and repeat it every day or 

 two for a week, and lay the rod by until the varnish has 

 become hard enough to be rubbed down with powdered 

 pumice or emery. This is done by spreading about a table- 

 spoonful of the powder on a dripping- wet rag, and rubbing 

 lightly, thereby giving a perfectly smooth surface. The 

 pumice or emery powder should be washed off, and the rod 

 receive another rubbing if not perfectly polished. When 

 thoroughly dry, a final coat of very thin copal should be 

 applied. Shellac can be diluted by adding alcohol, and 

 removed from the fingers with the same solvent. The ferules 

 should be permanently stuck on with hot shellac, after the 

 oiling and varnishing is completed. Shellac is the best 

 cement one can use in joining metal to wood, and is applied 

 by heating the end of a joint over a spirit-lamp, and sticking 

 on bits of the gum, turning the joint the meanwhile over the 

 blaze, to keep the shellac flowing around the wood. Now 

 stick on the ferule, hold it over the flame to heat it slightly, 

 and press the joint in as far as necessary. The shellac will 

 become hard in -a few minutes. The custom of fastening on 

 ferules with pins impairs the strength of the wood just where 

 a rod is most likely to break. 



Little remains to be done now but wrapping the splices of 

 the tip and putting on the rings. The former is performed 

 thus : Stick a stout awl into the edge of your work-bench or 

 into the top of a table, and holding the tip in the right hand, 

 lay on the end of the silk with the left ; then, turning the tip 

 with the right and guiding the silk with the left (the tip in 

 the mean while bearing and revolving against the opposite 

 side of the awl), wrap closely over the end of the silk and 

 the whole length of the splice, and fasten off with the invisible 

 knot. 



