An Automatic Furnace Tender 
INSTALL THIS SIMPLE CONTRIVANCE AND LET IT OPEN THE FURNACE DRAFTS 
FOR YOU ON COLD EARLY MORNINGS—OTHER ADAPTATIONS OF THE PRINCIPLE 
BY C. H. Claudy 
I T is not exactly a joy unconfined to arise from a comfortably 
warm bed at five o'clock on a bitter winter morning and sneak 
downstairs to encourage the furnace fire. The air is peculiarly 
dismal at that time of night, and you think unutterable things of 
your hard lot in life. But there is no escaping it—the drafts must 
be opened or eating breakfast will be a chilly operation. 
So I thought, and thought to some effect, for my furnace has 
an automatic servant attached, who gets up at any old time I want, 
opens the drafts, closes the door and starts up the fire without 
ever my waking up at all. It cost me a dollar and some odd cents, 
about an hour's work, and has stood the test of two winters’ work, 
and is a huge success. Inasmuch as I believe there is a chance 
(sic) that you are willing to give up your five A. M. stellar role, 
if you can find an understudy, I append a working drawing and 
instructions for making an automatic furnace tender. In case 
your troubles are with other early morning stunts besides fur¬ 
naces, I should say in 
passing that one man who 
saw my device has made a 
similar one which feeds 
his horses, and another 
has compelled it to open a 
chicken house door. 
The materials required 
are, one alarm clock, one 
log of wood weighing at 
least fifteen pounds, sev¬ 
eral screw eyes, several 
pulleys on screws, fifty 
feet of braided one-eighth 
inch cotton rope, one small 
guillotine mouse trap (the 
kind that catches a mouse 
and either breaks his back 
or squeezes him to death 
by a flapping wire band 
controlled by a spring), 
a few nails, a hammer, 
some wire, a spool, a pen¬ 
knife, a piece of string, an angle lever for bell cords (triangular 
piece of wood will do), a two-foot stick, and a furnace to be 
tended. 
Yes, I know this sounds like a receipt for a mechanical goulash, 
but it is not a joke. To combine all these things into a furnace 
tender is not as hard as it seems. You proceed as follows: 
First remove the bell from the alarm clock. Take the spool 
and with the penknife cut a slot in one end of it, so that it fits 
reasonably tight over the key which winds the alarm. Fasten the 
cord to the spool with a tack. Set aside to cool, and take up the 
cord and go examine your furnace. Fix the furnace as you leave 
it at night. Attach cords to each lever, handle, tab, pull, damper, 
door or other attachment, so that a strong pull on each cord, in 
the proper direction, will cause said lever, handle, tab, pull, dam¬ 
per, door or other attachment to revolve, move, change position, 
or otherwise be adjusted to the position you are accustomed to 
place it at five A. M. to produce a roaring fire. Each furnace is 
a law unto itself, but as a general rule, there will be three things 
to do; the flue damper must be turned, the ash-pit air vent must 
be opened, and the coal-pit door air vent must be closed. 
Having attached the cords to these parts of the furnace, run 
them over pulley wheels, which you screw into the anatomy of 
the house at the proper places, so that the cords pull on the fur¬ 
nace attachments in the proper directions. All the cords are led 
over to one place, to one side, and there attached to the log of 
wood which is to serve as a weight. If necessary, have two 
weights, one for each set of two cords, and join the cords through 
a pulley, attached to the weight. I can’t tell you how to fix your 
furnace, not knowing how many different prayers you are ac¬ 
customed to make to it in the morning; the sketch will show you 
mine, however, and variations are easily made. 
Now for the mouse trap. The clock is to be tied to a shelf, 
near a pier or pillar or upright. Immediately above it, the mouse 
trap is to be fastened, in such a position that, when set, the guil¬ 
lotine flops from above, downwards, not from belozv, upwards. 
The trigger of the mouse trap (that part on which the mouse 
steps) is to be attached 
to the cord which is fast¬ 
ened to the spool on the 
wind key of the alarm 
clock, so that when the 
alarm goes off, the spool 
winds on the string and 
pulls on the trigger, thus 
releasing the trap, the 
guillotine of which flops 
down. Very good. Now, 
to a rafter attach the piece 
of wood, two feet long, 
with a screw in the center. 
At the lower end, have a 
screw-eye bent out to 
form a straight hook. The 
upper end of the stick is 
to be attached with a wire 
to the bell cord angle (or 
triangular piece of wood 
pivoted on a screw at the 
front—see diagram) and 
the other side of this to the guillotine. Obviously now, when the 
alarm goes off, the trigger is sprung, the guillotine flops, the wire 
pulls on the bell cord angle, the other leg of the angle pulls on the 
wire connecting it to the lever, and the lever moves out of the per¬ 
pendicular. If the weight is hooked onto the lever, when all this 
happens, the weight will fall. If the weight is attached to cords 
which open and close dampers, door and other furnace adjust¬ 
ments, obviously you don’t have to get up at five o’clock. 
And why the mouse trap ? Simply to get force enough to spring 
the lever out of the perpendicular. The force of the spring which 
works the alarm in the clock is feeble (though you may not think 
it when it works the alarm itself) and insufficient to pull the lever 
from under the weights. But it is amply strong enough to spring 
the mouse trap. And the spring in the guillotine of the mouse 
trap is plenty strong enough to pull the lever and release the 
weights — and the weights are to be heavy enough to work the 
dampers. 0 . E. D. 
If I had just imagined all this, I should expect you to call it a 
dream. But it is an actual working device ; more, you can buy ’em 
(Continued on page 323) 
The automatic furnace tender operates somewhat in the fashion of the famous 
“House that Jack Built” doggerel. An alarm clock, mouse trap, cords, 
pulleys and a suitable weight are the chief requirements 
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