ll, and for future use,
you must have half to one inch flat camel-hair and fine hog-hair
brushes. A round hog-hair brush, medium size, is good for this
initial coating (some call it sizing; but I think this is
misleading--"size" being generally understood to bear reference to
glue, and we want none of _that_ under varnish.)

This should be dry in about two or three days, when you may lay on a
second course, less turpentine and rather more varnish; also less
yellow and a _very_ little red. This will take somewhat longer to
dry, and please observe that the more varnish (if it be oil and gum,
pure and simple) so much longer it will be in drying; and, as you
advance to the final stage, you will gradually discard the
turpentine altogether, as you will the yellow, colouring at last
with red only.

As you advance step by step, and before you venture on another
layer, with the tip of your finger test the varnish, and if there be
the _least tackiness_, wait a day or two until all be dry. And as a
roughness is bound to show itself as stage after stage is passed, it
is well to smooth down each course when dry with fine No. 0
glass-paper upon which is first spread a _drop_ of pure Lucca oil,
which, of course, must be lightly applied to the body of varnish,
and the whole carefully wiped with clean linen or silk handkerchief
afterwards.

Now, after the first two coats, you must use about a three-quarter
inch fine hog-hair brush (not many hairs in, mind) and for the later
coats one with camel hair. Sit on a low chair, have the light to
your right hand, the varnish before you handy, not too high. The
violin is held by neck, left hand of course; the stick at the broad
end through the hole where comes later the end pin (see above) rests
on your right leg as you sit. Get a fair dip of varnish in your
brush, but NEVER flood it; and beginning carefully under the
fingerboard, first one side, then the other, working the top sides
of the instrument also alternately, until the soundholes be reached,
when inside these cuts must be neatly coloured, after which you just
tip your brush with the varnish, neatly continuing where you leave
off, so that none can see a break in your progress. This advice
applies until ribs and scroll be all done after the belly and the
back. I have ever found the upper table the most exacting and
difficult; but, once again, _never flood your brush_, and you will
varnish sooner or later. But never _hurry_: and this