After you have made the bend it will require to be soldered, but before you can do this you must have the joint quite perfect and the edges true one with the other. A good bender will not require to touch his edges at all, but a novice will have to rasp and trim them up so that they come together. Having your edges true, soil them, take a gauge-hook, which may be described as a shave-hook with a gauge attached, and shave it about 1/8 in. each side; now solder it to look like the solder A, Fig. 45, which is done as follows: With some fine solder tack the joint at A D B, Fig. 44, put on some resin, and with a well-heated copper-bit drop some solder roughly on the point from B to A, then draw the bit over it again to float the solder, being especially careful not to let the joint open when coming off at A. Some plumbers think fit to begin here, but that is a matter of no importance. Do not forget that if your joint is not properly prepared, that is to say, true and even, it is sure to be a failure, and will have a "higgledy-piggledy" appearance. Some difference of opinion exists as to the best method of making these joints: one workman will make a good joint by drawing it while, on the other hand, another one will do it equally well by wiping it. Drawing will be fully explained in a part on pipe making. It may, however, be here mentioned that it is a method of making the joint by floating the solder along the joint with the ladle and plumbing-iron. [Illustration: FIG. 45.] It is not uncommon for plumbers to make their bends with only one joint on the back. PULLING UP BENDS. In London, it is the favorite plan to make bends without cutting them. Fig. 46. It is done by taking a length of pipe, and, just where you require the bend, lay it (_with the seam at the side_) upon a pillow, made by tightly filling a sack with sand, wood shavings, or sawdust; have some shavings ready to hand and a good lath, also a short length of mandrel about 3 ft. long and about 1/2 in. smaller than the pipe, and a dummy as shown at A B, Fig. 56. Now, all being ready, put a few burning shavings into the throat of the bend, just to get heat enough to make it fizz, which you can judge by spitting on it. When this heat is acquired withdraw the fire, and let the laborer quickly place the end of the mandrel into the pipe, and pull the pipe up while you place a sack or anything else convenient across the throat of the bend, then pull the pipe up a little, just sufficient to dent it across the throat. Now, with a _hot_ dummy, dummy out the dent, until it is round like the other part of the pipe. Keep at this until your bend is made, occasionally turning the pipe or its side and giving it a sharp blow on the side with the soft or hornbeam dresser; this is when the sides run out as in Fig. 37. Never strike the back part of the bend from inside with the dummy, but work the lead from the throat to the back with a view to thickening the back. [Illustration: FIG. 46.]