merging 2 user accounts

or combining 'em, maybe transferring (however you want to phrase it). here's the deal. I have an old user account set up just so. I have a new user account created, but I'd like to use the old user settings with the new user account, so that I only have one user account on my Mac to deal with. I've looked up how to deal with this and it doesn't look like it's super easy to do. It's possible, thought. the old user account is saved as a disk image on the hard drive somewhere, and all the old stuff is there, but not on the desktop. The HD icon isn't there either. It must be there-I just can't see it. I have show hard drives, External disks, CD's DVD"s and ipods and connected servers turned on under the finder preferences, but nothing yet. Do I have to folllow the procedure for transferring the stuff from the older user account to the new one?

thanks

John B