144 
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
was his first attempt, he made a pretty 
good job; it took him some time, how- 
ever, before he could get rid of the roclc- 
ing motion that all young persons seem to 
have in their hands when they first try to 
sharpen up a plane iron. 
Mr. Carpenter was very particular in his 
instructions regarding the method of 
sharpening tools ; and this was right ; for 
it is very important that every young- 
workman should know how to put and 
keep his tools in good order. And besides 
knowing how to put and keep them in 
order, it is equally essential that they 
should be kept in order, for it is impossi- 
ble to do satisfactory work with dull tools, 
or tools that are in bad shape, or not 
properly sharpened. It is an old saying, 
that *'Abad workman quarrels with his 
tools." The real trouble, however, is, 
that a bad workman does not know how 
to put his tools in order ; if he could have 
managed his tools all right he would not 
have been a bad workman. As a rule, 
it requires more skill to care for and 
properly manipulate tools, than to do the 
work ; hence, it will be seen that Mr. Car- 
penter was perfectly right in impressing 
on his boys' minds the necessity of taking 
great care of their tools. 
A few evenings after this, Mr. Carpenter 
and his three children were again in their 
workshop, where everything had been 
made nice and clean by Jessie, the day 
previous. 
"Now then, Fred," said Mr. Carpenter, 
*' I will show you how to use the planes 
and saws, and after you have acquired the 
' knack ' of properly handling them, you 
may teach your brother Ell wood. 
" In the first place, we will take a piece 
of inch stuff— all boards, planks, and 
scantlings are called ' stuff' by workmen, 
and, for the sake of brevity and conven- 
ience, we will adopt their modes of expres- 
sion—three or four feet long, and from six 
to ten inches wide. It is rough, just as it 
came from the saw mill ; we will lay it on 
the workbench, placing one end against 
the stopper. Now take the jack plane, 
see that the iron projects just a little be- 
yond the face of the plane ; grasp the 
handle in the right hand, place the left 
hand on the front of the plane, keeping 
the thumb towards you ; now then, push 
the plane forward, pressing it down on 
the work during the cut ; this you can do 
with very little exertion, if you slightly 
incline the body so as to cause its weight 
to rest partly upon the plane. On the re- 
turn stroke the pressure must be discon- 
tinued to a.void friction on the edge of the 
iron. Indeed, it is sometimes better to 
lift the heel of the plane up altogether, 
on the return stroke, as by this action the 
iron will remain sharp a greater length 
of time, particularly is it so when the^ 
surface of the stuff is full of sand or grit," 
Fred made a very creditable attempt — 
for the first one— with the jack plane, and 
the way he made the shavings fiy, filled 
Ellwood and Jessie with delight. To 
make a shaving two feet long, seemed, in 
Jessie's eyes, something wonderful. 
Fig. 17. 
Fred planed off the board to the satis- 
faction of his father, and seemed quite 
pleased to think he had accomplished so 
much. 
"But, Pa," said Fred, "What is it 
makes all these marks on the board where 
I have planed it? " 
"Ah!" said his father, "There will 
always be marks left on a surface after a 
coarsely set jack plane. We must now 
have the board smoothed off with the 
smoothing plane, which, you will see, 
will make a nice smooth surface," 
Fred then took the small plane, and, 
after receiving some instructions from 
his father, fell to and smoothed off the 
surface very nicely, much to the delight 
of his brother and sister. 
(To be continued.) 
Fig. 17 shows how Mr. Carpenter taught Fred to- 
hold the smoothing plane when using it to smooth 
up stuff. B shows the stopper in the bench, o the 
work-bench, and s s the stuff being smoothed. 
