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This will, if the wood is much riddled, be much like mosaic work, the fitting in of the pieces running here and there over the surface. The contour, however, is preserved by this treatment, it being difficult, unless the repairer has considerable artistic knowledge, to keep or reproduce the exact form if the half or more of the peg-box and adjacent portions are cut clean away as is often done.
Number each one with a pencil for identification when reinserting; lay a piece of veneer flat on the outside of the peg-box reaching up a little past the top of the scroll; to do this nicely a segment should be cut away where the volute intervenes, and with the pencil, mark carefully on each side a line neatly against the back and front.
It would be as well to let the new wood be of full measurement to allow of fining down the new surface to meet that of the old, which may possibly have some lustrous varnish upon it, and which every good restorer would do his utmost to preserve. After this is all satisfactorily done, the lines may be traced which are to act as guides for the hollowing of the peg-box.
When this is done to satisfaction, the usual process advised for the glueing may be proceeded with, and being carefully seen to be in proper order, the cramp with pads against the outside cheeks of the peg-box may be screwed on rather tightly.
The next measurement will be, supposing the French style is adopted that of the extreme width of the end, which will be given by taking a point at half the thickness of the peg-box wall at the part and similarly placed on the other or opposite and taking the width between the two.
As a preservative against accident a piece of soft wood, perhaps a quarter of an inch in thickness, and cut in width and shape equal to that of the "cheek" of the peg-box, and placed over the part with a piece of paper against the varnished surface, will enable the rotten portion to keep its form, the pressure being distributed; care must be exercised in carving the block of wood that it reaches over and quite on to the sound parts.
After that, on the face of the wood that is to say, the front, as though looking at the fingerboard, I mark at four-and-a-quarter inches from end of the head, which is to be the end of peg-box, and three inches from that, the narrow end of said box that is to be cut. Then I take centre of narrow end and mark off seven-sixteenths of an inch width of said end, five-eighths of an inch for broad end.
These two measurements will represent as nearly as possible the width of the neck along its course at the junction of the fingerboard. From the point representing the opening of the peg-box one of two lengths upwards must be decided upon; if the splicing is to be effected in the manner common in this country, a greater length will be required than for that of the French style.
A thick piece of cork should, therefore, be placed between the cramp and the hollow grooving or shell, a small block of moderately hard wood being placed inside the peg-box as an opposing pad or buffer, the cramp may then be screwed down fairly tight. The two operations, glueing and pressing the side parts and that in connection with the shell, must not be attempted simultaneously.
If this is attended to, with all other necessary precautions, there will be little cause for fear of the part going bad again, in fact it should be actually stronger than before. It may occasionally happen that both sides of the peg-box have been strained and split, with accompanying conditions of previous bad repairing and dirt.
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