The best metal for tips is pure block tin, as it remains white. If it be wished to make it a little harder, add a very little antimony, but this is hardly necessary. Old type, when melted, make a very good material for tips when pure tin cannot be obtained. Tin has the advantage of always retaining a clear white color, which when alloyed with lead, it will not do. _Chequering._—To lay out the work preparatory for chequering, take a piece of card—a firm pasteboard, cut it to the shape of the spot to be chequered; mark around it with a lead pencil. If it be the small of a gun stock, place it at the other side from that first marked and mark that place. See that both places are marked alike. Then place the paper on, so that when it is used as a guide the tool will cut a groove where the line was drawn. Cut outlines in the same manner, the paper serving as a guide for the tool. After one groove is cut, this is a guide for grooving the space inclosed by the outlines. To finish the cuts or grooves, fold a short piece of fine sand-paper and run the folded edge along the cuts. Be careful not to cut down too much with the sand-paper. A fine-cut, three-square file can be used to finish up the grooves made by the chequering-tool. Be careful to select a file that has very sharp corners. If one of the flat surfaces of the file be ground smooth, the teeth on the corners will be found to be very sharp, and will answer first-rate for finishing. The same may be used for finishing the shading or outside lines around the chequered surface. _Coloring Gun Stocks._—Gun stocks are colored with linseed oil in which alkanet root has been placed. The oil will then be of a bright red color. The oil may be applied cold or warm, as most convenient. After the application let the stock stand for a day or two until the wood has absorbed all the oil possible. Four ounces of the alkanet root to half a pint of the oil are sufficient. Unboiled or raw linseed oil is generally used. It may take five or six days to color, after the root is put in. It may be put on the work four or five times, with a bit of sponge or a rag. _To Stain a Maple Stock._—Mix an ounce and a half of nitric acid with about equal quantity of iron turnings or filings. Wait until all the gas evolved has evaporated, and then dip a rag in the liquid and wash the portions of the stock to be colored. When this is dry, wet with the oil and alkanet root. _Another Method._—A stock may be oiled and then passed over a brisk flame, as that made from dry shavings, until the oil is scorched off, and then lightly rubbed down with fine sand-paper and then finished in the usual way.