348 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



KEEPING MACHINERY IN REPAIR. 



BY A. I. ROOT. 



I had in mind putting- this article under 

 the head of the Home department; but some 

 might object, and say that the home has 

 not very much to do with machinery. I 

 think it has, however, a great deal to do 

 with it. The kitchen pump is a machine, 

 or, if you choose, the pump outdoors. So is 

 the coflfee-mill, the clock, the clothes-wring- 

 er, the wheelbarrow, and, I was going- to 

 say, the horse and buggy. Even if there 

 is not very much ''machinery" about a 

 horse, there is considerable about the har- 

 ness; and when it gets to the bug-gy, to saj' 

 nothing of implements for gardening and 

 farming, I think we shall have to decide 

 that every home in our land might with prof- 

 it take lessons in regard to keeping ma- 

 chinery' in repair. 



It really gives me pain when I visit bee- 

 keepers or other people, and see machinery 

 condemned as useless when a little care in 

 repairing might have kept it in good order. 

 We have all seen it in fence-corners, occu- 

 pying valuable room in outbuildings, and 

 sometimes scattered about in the dooryard. 

 The old saying, that a stitch in time saves 

 nine, applies to this matter of repairs, per- 

 haps, more than to any thing else. Ma- 

 chinery gets out of order, or comes to pieces 

 because the bearings get loose; and I do 

 not know but human beings get out of order 

 and come to pieces because they are obliged 

 to use rickety, rattling implements. The 

 kitchen pump makes a great clatter when 

 you pump a pail of water, because it is not 

 kept in order. When you have sickness in 

 the famil}', and the sick one is just getting 

 a little sleep, you may begin to think of 

 these things. Let us take the pump first. 



There are two joints in every pump that 

 should be tight and snug — the fulcrum of 

 the handle, and the joint where the handle 

 is attached to the rod of the plunger. Con- 

 stant use wears these joints. Usually the 

 best remedy is to put in a new bolt — one 

 that fills the holes of all three of the bear- 

 ings close and tight. If the hole in the 

 single central bearing has worn larger than 

 the two holes in the other piece, the first 

 thing to do is to make these holes all the 

 same size. Bore out the small ones until 

 they are of the same size as the largest one, 

 or nearly the same; then get a bolt or pin 

 that fits snugly in all three. Make it so 

 close when first repaired that it will turn 

 a little hard; but oil it frequently and you 

 will soon have a quiet smooth-working joint. 

 It is better that the rivet or pin be absolute- 

 ly tight in one of the pieces — that is, so the 

 bolt or pin does not turn when the pump is 

 worked. This prevents the rivet or bolt 

 from getting loose or dropping out, and re- 

 duces the wear to just one piece of the ma- 

 chine. Now, with a little sewing-machine 

 oil-can close by, you can keep these joints 

 all well oiled. Some of you may urge that 

 this is a plumber's business. Well, if you 



have not had experience in hiring plumbers, 

 send and get one. Every man who has a 

 home of his own, especially if he is obliged 

 to work hard to make both ends meet, should 

 do his own repairing about home. The 

 long winter evenings are a splendid time to 

 do such work. When I get tired reading 

 the magazines and papers I really enjoy 

 taking my kit of tools and fixing the door- 

 locks, pump, the clothes- wringer, and every 

 thing else that squeaks or rattles, and 

 wears on the nerves of the good wife. Some 

 of you may urge you have not skill in this 

 line. Well, then you had better go right to 

 work and learn. If you have a genuine 

 love in your heart for the dear wife you will 

 soon acquire skill. If you send for a plumb- 

 er or other mechanic he will tell you your 

 pump, sewing-machine, or something else, 

 is all right, make a big bill, and go off 

 with his tools. When he is well out of 

 sight the machine will go wrong again. If 

 it is the man of the house who does the work, 

 he can watch it and go at it again and again 

 until he comes out victorious; and this he 

 sometimes does where the regular mechan- 

 ics give it up. 



A little attention to "bushing" saves a 

 lot of money with all kinds of machinery. 

 Some of you may not know what the word 

 bushing means to a blacksmith or a jeweler. 

 Well, it is putting in a tube or a crescent- 

 shaped piece of metal to reduce the size of 

 a hole that is worn too large. When I was 

 a boy, the country was full of wooden clocks. 

 After forty or fifty years' use the holes in 

 the wood became too large, and most jewel- 

 ers told the owners of the clocks that they 

 were not worth fixing, in order to sell them 

 a new one. We had in this region, however, 

 an ingenious old man they called the ' ' clock- 

 tinker." He invented a plan for bushing 

 wooden clocks. He carried around a bun- 

 dle of goose quills and hens' feathers. He 

 would cut off from one of these quills a 

 short tube that he could push into the hole 

 in the wooden clock where it had become too 

 large. This could be managed so as to re- 

 duce the size of the hole just right. Then 

 the steel pivot in the clock-wheel had an 

 ivory bushing, for the quill or the feather is 

 equal to ivory. He said this quill bushing 

 would never wear out, and I guess he was 

 pretty nearly right about it. In any small 

 machine where you want pivots to run easily, 

 and without wear, bush the holes with a 

 quill. Let us now go back to the pump. 



Sometimes the hole in the plunger wears 

 oblong or egg-shaped at the joint. The 

 other holes in the bolt may be all right. In 

 this case we will take a piece of metal — 

 brass is better than iron — and file it some- 

 thing in the shape of the new mx)n so as to 

 fit the enlarged hole, and leave a smaller 

 hole at one side. A neater way is to melt 

 and pour in some babbitt metal to take the 

 place of the metal that is worn away. That 

 is the way they do in machine-shops. Bab- 

 bitt metal wears better than iron or steel, 

 and makes less friction. See that there is 

 nothing about the clothes-wringer, pump. 



