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Experience Talks on Woodworking 



It )ias been the experience of the writer to come in contact with 

 owners or managers of concerns in the furniture and planing mill 

 industries, whose first question concerning a new piece of machinery 

 is, "How much does it cost?" They are greatly concerned with 

 initial cost, and, without investigating the merits of the machine in 

 question, will almost invariably refuse to consider it after they have 

 once heard the price. It is not so much what a machine costs that 

 should determine its value, but what it can do. Whether planer, sur- 

 facer, molder or tenoner, the durability of the machine and its free- 

 dom from repairs should be considered above all else. The cost price 

 is a minor detail. 



It is natural enough for men in business these days to be lured 

 away from common sense by lower cost. When they see a macliine 

 which purports to do just as good work as another, and for half the 

 cost, the dollar mark seems to take precedence. The woodworking 

 man, however, who is versed in mechanics, by thoroughly examining a 

 machine, can tell whether or not it will turn out a good quality of 

 work in sufficient quantities to warrant the expenditure of the required 

 money for its installation. Nine times out of ten he will not sacri- 

 fice the efficiency of his establishment in the slightest degree by the 

 " penny -TPise and pound-foolish" idea. 



It should be the aim of all workers in wood, and especially in hard- 

 woods, to study machinery as well as grades of lumber; to be com- 

 petent inspectors of the knife-grinder, band saw or planing machine, 

 as well as of firsts and seconds. Too much time has been expended 

 in the past on the lumber end of the business, leaving the machinery 

 to take care of itself. Until methods of measuring values and of keep- 

 ing records that enable one to obtain real values, are adopted, he 

 wiU never l>e able to purchase saws, surfacers, etc., with intelligence. 

 Men in other lines of business display knowledge in the machinery 

 end of their calling, with the result that their proficiency in manu- 

 facturing a product is brought up to a high standard. Furniture and 

 lumber manufacturers should get busy and follow the good example 

 set by others. 



Wlien a machine, a group of machines, or an entire plant, shows 

 annoying vibration, the cause therefor and the source thereof may be 

 entirely different things. The source of most machine vibrations is 

 lack of balance and uneven loads, which latter is merely lack of 

 balance in another form. But the things that cause most of the vibra- 

 tion in machinery arc belts. The belts may not always originate the 

 vibrations, but they pass them along, add to them, and sometimes 

 create them. To get an object lesson on this point, one has but to 

 go into a shop or factory electrically driven, with individual motors 

 throughout, then into a belt-driven plant of some magnitude, where 

 there are lots of heavy belts. The belts are the medium of transmis- 

 sion, and acceleration in the factory, like the strings ou a violin, are 

 the medium of sound transmission and creation. Individual machines 

 may show jerky vibrations when electrically driven, but the disturb- 

 ance is localized, whereas if numbers of belts are coupled up into a 

 great system the vibrations are distributed, joined into others so that 

 aU machines are affected by both their own and the troubles of 

 others. It is not electricity that does away with this, but the separat- 

 ing and isolating of the sources of vibrations. Vibrations originating 

 in the different machines are like small sticks, in that they are com- 

 paratively easy to break up singly, but hitch them all together with a 

 system of belts and they are like a bundle of sticks firmly bound 

 together — a pretty tough proposition to break up. If the belting is 

 uneven in weight or lacking in balance in any way, it adds materially 

 to the source of vibration itself. 



Bust spots on a saw are signs of neglect, and burnt spots are a sign 

 of abuse. 



Oak, whether plain or quartered, is a comparatively easy wood to 

 work smooth. It is not a soft wood, but what is meant is that oak can 

 be worked on the planer and get a smooth finish with knives that are 



—18— 



a little dull. The same thing is true in working it with saws. In 

 sawing gum and some of the otlier woods, the knives and saws must 

 be perfectly keen to give good results. But when it comes to sanding, 

 it is the other way. You may sand gum or some other even-grained 

 wood ^vith comparatively smooth or even slick sandpajier and get fair 

 results, but in sanding oak, to get a good finish, the sandpaper should 

 be fresh and sharp. This is because of the unevenness in the texture 

 of the wood. If it is plain oak, there are the hard streaks and the 

 soft streaks of the annual rings of growth and if they are sanded 

 over with dull paper, it will cut down into the soft streaks and the 

 hard ridges be all right for a certain kind of finish, but whore a per- 

 fectly smooth face is wanted, one should sand oak with a sharp, clean 

 l)aper. If it is quartered oak, it is the same thing in a different way. 

 There is a hard film which makes the splash line which nothing but 

 sharp paper will touch. If the wood is sanded over with dull or slick 

 paper it will simply dig down between the splash lines and leave them 

 standing up in waves. To get good results, you should not only have 

 sharp paper, but you should get the sanding across the grain or splash 

 line to reduce the tendency to cut down the soft places between. 



If insurance has to be carried at all (and it looks like an attempt 

 to throw money away not to carry it) it is best to get it at once, for 

 you do not know when the fire fiend will take a notion to visit you. 

 In other words, get ready for a fire when there is no fire. The insur- 

 ance people never relax their vigilance, as one often finds to his dis- 

 comfort. One sometimes doubts the wisdom of having insurance, 

 once he has the details of prevention according to the insurance 

 requirements. If all would take the same care of plants as individuals 

 as they are compelled to do as possible beneficiaries of an insurance 

 company, there would be less fires and less expense. It is an axiom 

 that insurance is a necessary part of every business. 



After all is said and done on the subject of the best methods of 

 shop lighting, the fact remains that the best light of all is daylight 

 and plenty of it. If you can so design your shop or factory to secure 

 this, you are all right, and the lighting for the dark part of the 

 short days is only a minor matter. 



This country employs labor-saving machinery to a greater extent 

 than any other, yet laboring men and mechanics here get better 

 wages and work steadier than in any other country. 



A board thick at one end and thin at the other won 't average up 

 right — it makes too much shavings and not enough lumber. 



Blessed is the filer that maintains a perfect tooth for he shall 

 save hammer marks and elbow grease. 



A medicine chest in a woodworking industry should be one of the 

 requirements, for in a large plant scarcely a day passes without 

 someone being more or less seriously hurt, and wounds have to be 

 plastered and bandaged by rough hands and in a crude way. Mill 

 men know how frequent and severe many of these accidents are. 

 Lint, bandages and rolls of surgeon's plaster should always be kept 

 in stock and convenient for these emergencies. Laws of many states 

 require that "first aid" supplies always be on hand, but common 

 sense should not make such legislation necessary. 



Come to think of it, the band saw comes pretty near being the 

 whole thing now. Even for work for which a few years ago it was 

 thought nothing Vnit the circular would ever be satisfactory, the band 

 has proved itself efficient. The good old circular, however, will always 

 have plenty to do. 



One can test the metal of saws by running them into spikes, but 

 that is not the right way to do it. The real test is the amount of 

 good wood sawing it will do day after day. A. B. M. 



