THE TOBNG SCIENTIST. 
115 
usual, and immediately iiastened to the 
stable to see the tools and lumber their 
father had bought; and Ellwood fairly 
yelled with delight when he saw the 
brightly polished saws, chisels, and bits. 
He had a thousand questions to ask con- 
cerning the tools, and so rapidly were 
they put, that before his father could an 
swer one, two others were asked, " How 
much did you give for the four saw^s, Pa? " 
said Ellwood. " I gave live dollars and 
a quarter for them, but I believe they are 
worth more, or at least more is asked for 
them if they are bought singly, but, you 
see, I bought a number of other tools in 
the same store, and got them a little 
cheaper on that account," said Mr. Car- 
penter. " What do we want the two big 
saws for? " said the boy. "Why," said 
Mr. Carpenter, "One of them is for cut- 
ting boards across the grain, and is called 
a ' cut off ' or cross-cut saw, and the other 
one is for cutting boards lengthwise or 
with the grain, and is called a rip-saw ; 
you will notice that it has much larger 
teeth than the ".cross-cut " saw, and that 
the teeth have more "hook," and are' 
filed square across. Four teeth to the inch 
is about the average for a i'ii»-saw, and | 
eight to the inch for a "cross-cut "* The 1 
'Fig. 1. I 
small saw with the iron rib on the back, j 
is called a sash saw, by some workmen, 
by others it is called a " tenon saw." This | 
last name is the proper one, and I wish j 
*/, Shows the shape and style of both cross-cut 
saw and rip-saw. The cross-cut saw genernlly 
has a blade about twenty-four inches long. The j 
rip-saw blade is about twenty-six inches long. 
g, shows a tenon-saw with a blade about six- ; 
teen inches long. j 
e, shows a compass saw with a blade about I 
twenty inches long, and about one inch wide in 
the centre. 
you to remem ber that. The tenon saw has 
about fourteen teeth to the inch, and is 
filed very nearly the same as a cross- 
cut. The long narrow saw is called a 
"compass saw," and is used for cutting 
circles from four inches to two or three 
feet in diameter. It has -about the same 
number of teeth to the inch as a " cross- 
cut saw," but is filed squarer across the 
tooth, but not so square as a rip saw. 
There are quite a number of other kinds 
of saws than the ones I have bought, but 
we do not require them at present, when 
we do I will get them and describe them 
and their use, so that you will know what 
they are for and how to work with them." 
" Come boys," said Mr. Carpenter, " we 
must now go to work and make a carpen- 
ter's bench and two saw horses. EUw^ood, 
you bring into the shop one of those 
pieces of scantling that is 2 by 4 inches." 
"What do you mean, Pa, by 2 by 4 
inches? " said Ellwood. 
" I ought to have explained this matter 
before, my son, but it is not too late yet. 
Two by four inches means any piece of 
w^ood or other material, or space, whose 
dimensions are two inches on two sides, 
by four inches on tJie other two sides, re- 
gardless of length. All scantlings and 
timbers are , measured tliis way, so that 
you will know after this wdiat is under- 
stood when timbers or scantling are 
spoken of as being 2 by 4 inches, 4 by 6 
inches, 3 by 10 inches, or any similar di- 
mensions. Well, this being explained, let 
us proceed to work. We want four legs or 
standards for the bench, and eight legs 
for the two saw horses. Legs for the saw 
horse must be cut twei^ty inches long; 
you will see the 20 figured on the rule ( Fig. 
2). Be careful and liave the legs all cut 
to one length. Now we want two top 
pieces for the horses, cut from the same 
kind of scantling. They want to be two 
feet six inches long. Now then, lay all 
the legs in a row close to each other with 
the ends all in line; now lay one of the 
top pieces flatwise on the legs with one of 
its edges on the line of the ends of the legs, 
then mark with a lead pencil along the 
other edge, on the legs, and we have a 
line cutting across the flat sides of the 
