Aug. 22, 1884.] 



• KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



155 



be considered as essential. They will cost as nearly as 

 may be .£2. Ss. at a good shop. A carpenter's bench, too, 

 is a great desideratum, but a very tirm table will do for 

 smaller jobs, especially if it is placed in the corner of a 

 room so that one end and one side of it abut against the 

 adjoining walls. The amateur who is about, though, to 

 take up carpentering in earnest, had better buy a bench. 

 A new one of sufficient size for ordinary amat<"ur cabinet- 

 making may be bought for five and forty shillings or so, 

 but occasionally a second-hand one may be picked up for 

 much less. Suppose, then, that the reader has provided 

 himself with the tools mentioned above, the next thing will 

 be to learn how to use them in an attempt upon a simple 

 piece of work. 



Asa preliminary, though, even to this, it is essential that 

 they should, one and all, be very sharp . No good or even 

 decent work ever was done yet with blunt tools, or ever 

 will be ; so we had better begin at the very beginning by 

 learning how to sharpen ours. Saw-sharpening the 

 amateur had better not attempt — at all events, for some 

 time to come. It is an art which requires a considerable 



Fifr. 11. 



^ 



Fig. 10. 



Fig. 12. 



amount of practice ; and, besides, he can get them sharpened 

 and set for 3d. a ]iiece ; so that the game is really not 

 worth the candle. Using the word ''set" just now, re- 

 minds me to explain that a saw is set by bending its teeth 

 alternately to the right and to the left ot' the plane of the 

 saw ; so that if we suppose the first, third, fifth, and seventh 

 teeth to bend to the left, the second, fourth, sixth, and 

 eighth, and so on, will be bent to the right. If the reader 

 ■will turn a saw-edge upwards and look along it, he will see 

 what I mean in an instant. His plane-irons and chisels, 

 though, he must, perforce, sharpen himself. To get out a 

 plane-iron, a long plane (like Fig. I) should be knocked 

 with a mallet on the front part of the top of it. In the 

 case of the smoothlng-plane (Fig. 5) the iron is released by 

 striking the hinder end of the plane. Having got our iron 

 out, we shall find it present the appearance of Fig. 10, 

 where i is the cutting plane-iron proper ; in front of which 

 is screwed b, the break-iron (so called because it breaks the 

 ehavings and causes them to curl up). These two irons 



Now it will be noticed at occe that this iron is sharpened 

 from the back only, its face being perfectly flat, and the 

 angle at which it has been found in practice the best to 

 sharpen it is one of .3-")^ (there are, as everyone knows, 

 360^ in a whole circle, and 90" between two lines that 

 stand square to each otiier). Any one who knows the 

 XXIXth proposition of the 1st Book of Euclid will see at 

 once the explanation of the little "dodge" I am going to 

 describe. By the aid of the " protractor," to be found in 

 every case of mathematical instruments, we cut out a bit of 

 card ABC with its angle at B = 35'' and that at A a right 

 angle. If now we put our piece of card so that its side 

 B C shall lie lengthways along the face of the plane iron 

 P I, and placing the iron on our oilstone OS, Fig. 11, 

 tilt up the plane-iron until the side of the triangle A B is 

 parallel with T D, the top of the stone, we shall have 

 B C D = A B C, or measuring 3.J", so that we have only to 

 keep our plane-iron steadily at this tilt to sharpen it accu- 

 rately. After rnbbing it sulficiently we must lay it per- 

 fectly flat on its face on the stone, and give it a rub or two 

 to take otf the rough or " wire" edge caused by sharpening 

 it from behind. Then we replace our break-iron, and put 

 the plane together again, being careful that the edge of tho 

 iron is o«Zi/ just visible when the bottom of the jilace is 

 looked at edgeways from the front. A firmer chisel (Fig. 6) 

 may be sharpened in precisely the same way. It is almost 

 needless to add that some clean olive oil must be dropped 

 on the stone before we begin sharpening. 



Very well. Suppose that we have got all our tods 

 thoroughly sharp and in good order, we will begin by 

 makin;i the wooden framework for a three-leaved screen ; 

 to be afterwards covered with canvas and scrap engravings, 

 or bronzed American cloth, and painted with flowers. The 

 three frames, which must, of course, be identical in size and 

 shape, I will suppose to be each 5 feet high by 2 feet wide, 

 the framing being l\ inch wide and ^ inch thick. In each 

 frame we shall require two upright sides (technically called 

 the "stiles"), each 5 feet long, and three transverse pieces 

 (known as the " rails"), each 2 feet long. This will involve 

 our buying 13 feet 3 inches (or thereabouts) of 1 inch 

 deal planking, which will be 7 inches wide, and must be 

 free from knots. It will, in one sense, cut to waste, i e , we 

 shall not use it all, but a little reflection will show that we 

 cannot get wool of the dimensions we want out of a 

 smaller plank. It may, though, pretty evidently be in the 

 form of two planks — one 5 feet 1 inch, and the other 

 S feet 2 inches. The odd inches are to enable us to cut 

 the ends of our styles and rails truly square, and yet 

 leave them of the right length. Out of our 5 feet 1 inch 

 piece of board we shall (allowing for planing - up) 

 only get five stiles ; so we begin by drawing f.iur 

 straight lines on it, equidistant from its edges, and 

 parallel to them and to one another. This will 

 divide the 7 inclies of width into five equal strips each, 

 ly*j inch wide. The jilane will reduce this width to our 

 adopted one, when it comes to be used. But perhaps in a 

 job like this, we had better plane up our board first; so, 

 laying it on our bench, or a very flat table, with a stop of 

 some sort in front of it (N.B. This stop must obviously 

 project above the bench or table less than the thickness or 



Fig. 13. 



are connected by the screw s, which must be loosened by a 

 screw-driver until it moves up and down easily in the slot, 

 through which it. is to be drawn until the screw-head comes 

 opposite the big round hole at the top of the slot, through 

 which it can be then drawn, and the plane-iron will be free. 



the bo.ird, or it will catch the plane every time), we 

 begin with the jack-plane (Fig. 4), and go all over the 

 board. Having taken otf all the dark and rough outside, 

 we finish up with our tr)ing-plane. The amateur must try 

 to plane hollow, or his plane will take oflT too much at each 



