"Yes, I've picked out a piece that appears to me just the thing; it only wants the curve cutting to fit the upper table, and that is quite clean and regular without any slips of the tool in cutting the old one out, which I think was the original one."
The chief gives two or three glances over the work, his accustomed eye being ready to catch any little fault likely to have been made by his man.
"That surface, James, for a Maggini, is remarkably even; as often as not the gouge marks are left, making a close fit of the bar an impossibility, let me see the bar."
The piece of wood is produced; the Maggini being a full fourteen inches in length of body, the proposed bar is cut to ten and a half inches in length and seems to the chief to be satisfactory.
"You can now go on, James; let me see the bar before you glue it in."
The upper table of the Maggini and the bar are taken away by James, who goes at once to work with the necessary preparation for placing the bar in position correctly.
With a rather soft lead pencil he marks off the length from each end of the table that the bar will occupy, that is, a little over at the lower end than the upper, the exact distance from the joint or central line, a trifle, perhaps eighth of an inch nearer at the upper part, letting the middle or thickest part of the bar be at the spot where the foot of the bridge will rest.
After this the bar, at present straight and about three-quarters of an inch high all along its course, has marked upon the part that has to remain uppermost some indication to the fancy of the operator that will keep in mind which end is to be placed at the upper part.
This being done, he commences with a chisel to cut away portions at each end, and tries on the surface of the part to be fitted to. After two or three times the chiselling has to be more finely done until the closest fit possible is obtained; it is then ready for fixing. The bar is as yet quite straight along the upper part. With regard to the levelling of the bar to the curve of the interior part of the upper table, there used to be a custom in the repairing business of "putting the bar in with a spring" as it was termed. The repairers always spoke of it as "the regular thing to do," but on being asked questions as to how much and under what circumstances the "spring" would be best one way or the other, became somewhat reticent, possibly from fear of being led into some scientific depths from which it might not be easy to extricate themselves. James, however, has been taught differently in the management of this portion of his work; he having found from close examination that the rise of the curving on the outside on the bar side was quite high enough, went on with the operation.
Had the bar side been in a sunken condition, his chief would have required him to restore the elevation by the wetting process before alluded to.