X.—BOOK-REST. (Continued.)
YOU now have the book-rest all put together ready for finishing. The first thing now to do is to sandpaper it. For this you must buy some (o) or (oo) sandpaper, and go over the whole thing, being careful not to round the corners. You can accomplish this by stretching a piece of sandpaper over one of the little bits that remained after cutting: this will make a flat, firm surface, and will not be so liable to round the edges as if stretched over your thumb.
FIG. 1.
Before staining, you must make the brass springs to hold the leaves back.
Cut six and one half inches of your spring wire, (which should be about one sixteenth of an inch in diameter.) At a point five eighths of an inch from end, bend the wire into a right angle; two and one fourth inches from that point give the wire a turn round a small nail, or piece of telegraph wire (you cannot turn it evenly with your fingers alone); this is to give the wire a spring, and will enable you to lift the end of the wire on to the leaves of the book. Now turn the end of the wire in so as to make a rounded end. It will then look like [fig. 1].
Make another spring exactly like this one: then cut off a piece five and one half inches long, bend to a right angle at a point five eighths of an inch from end. Then at a point two inches from angle, give the wire a turn as in the other set, and turn the end in. Make a second one like this of the remaining piece of wire.
To fasten these springs on to the rest, you must bore a hole one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter through the sides of the two end uprights, at a point just below the end of piece D. Insert the five eighth inch ends of the larger set of springs into these holes, from the outside. You will find that you can lay the springs back when not in use, and that you can turn them out and lift the ends over the edges of your book, so as to keep the pages down when you do need to use them.