

E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Chris Jordan, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made
available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org)



Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file
      which includes the original more than 250 illustrations.
      See 43574-h.htm or 43574-h.zip:
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43574/43574-h/43574-h.htm)
      or
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43574/43574-h.zip)


      Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive. See
      http://archive.org/details/carpentrywoodwor00fost


Transcriber's note:

      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

      [sqrt] represents the square root symbol.





CARPENTRY AND WOODWORK


      *      *      *      *      *      *

THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY OF WORK AND PLAY


    CARPENTRY AND WOODWORK
           By Edwin W. Foster

    ELECTRICITY AND ITS EVERYDAY USES
           By John F. Woodhull, Ph.D.

    GARDENING AND FARMING
           By Ellen Eddy Shaw

    HOME DECORATION
           By Charles Franklin Warner, Sc.D.

    HOUSEKEEPING
           By Elizabeth Hale Gilman

    MECHANICS, INDOORS AND OUT
           By Fred T. Hodgson

    NEEDLECRAFT
           By Effie Archer Archer

    OUTDOOR SPORTS, AND GAMES
           By Claude H. Miller, Ph.B.

    OUTDOOR WORK
           By Mary Rogers Miller

    WORKING IN METALS
           By Charles Conrad Sleffel

      *      *      *      *      *      *


[Illustration: Photograph by Helen W. Cooke. The Shop--the Most
Interesting Place in the World on a Stormy Day]


The Library of Work and Play

CARPENTRY AND WOODWORK

by

EDWIN W. FOSTER

[Illustration]







Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1911

All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation
into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian

Copyright, 1911, by Doubleday, Page & Company




PREFACE


There is a period in a boy's life, roughly speaking between the ages of
ten and sixteen, when his interests and energy turn in the direction
of making things. It may be called the creative period, and with many
of us it ends nearer sixty than sixteen. At one time it will take the
form of a mania for building boats; again it may be automobiles or
aeroplanes.

The boy is very susceptible to suggestion. A great automobile race
occurs, and for weeks the building and racing of toy automobiles
goes on apace. The papers are filled with accounts of an aero meet.
Immediately the boy's energy turns to the study and manufacture of
aeroplanes. This abounding interest in the real things of life is
perfectly normal and should be encouraged rather than discouraged; but
the boy needs guidance, if this energy is to be properly directed.
He needs strengthening in his weak points, otherwise he may become
superficial and "scattering" in his work, and fail to stick to a thing
until, overcoming all obstacles, he succeeds in doing the one thing
he set out to do. He may acquire the bad habit of never finishing
anything, though continually starting new schemes.

The ability of the average boy is far beyond the general estimate, but
intelligent supervision is needed. The pocket knife is his natural
tool, yet not one boy out of a thousand realizes its possibilities.
An attempt has been made in this volume to suggest some of these,
especially for boys living in the city, where a little work shop for
himself, unfortunately, is too often a luxury.

The two boys here depicted form a composite picture of several thousand
American boys whom it has been the pleasure of the author to guide.

The ability to design new things, and to adapt general rules to
personal requirements, is to be encouraged at all times, and this idea
has been exemplified in the following pages.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                   PAGE


       I. Introductory                                         3
      II. The Knife and Its Possibilities--First Experiments   6
     III. Mechanical Drawing                                  23
      IV. Mechanical Drawing (Continued)                      31
       V. Toys                                                40
      VI. Moving Toys                                         50
     VII. Designing Moving Toys                               58
    VIII. The Model Aeroplane                                 68
      IX. The Monoplane                                       75
       X. Kites                                               84
      XI. Chip Carving and Knife Work                         97
     XII. Chip Carving (Continued)                           109
    XIII. Chip Carving (Continued)                           120
     XIV. The Shop                                           133
      XV. The Equipment for a Shop                           143
     XVI. Building a Lumber Rack                             150
    XVII. Mills and Weather Vanes                            157
   XVIII. Tools--Saws                                        169
     XIX. Tools--Planes                                      176
      XX. Squaring up Stock                                  185
     XXI. Boring Tools                                       193
    XXII. Miscellaneous Tools                                199
   XXIII. Making Nail Boxes                                  206
    XXIV. Bird Houses                                        213
     XXV. Simple Articles for Household Use                  221
    XXVI. The Mitre Box and Picture Frame                    228
   XXVII. Making Toilet Boxes                                235
  XXVIII. Brackets and Book Racks                            242
    XXIX. Construction                                       250
     XXX. The Use of the Gouge                               258
    XXXI. Coat Hanger and Towel Rollers                      266
   XXXII. Clock Cases                                        276
  XXXIII. Foot Stools                                        291
   XXXIV. The Tabourette                                     301
    XXXV. The Dovetail Joint                                 313
   XXXVI. Inlaying                                           319
  XXXVII. The Checkerboard                                   332
 XXXVIII. Tool Cases and Chests                              339
   XXXIX. Book Cases and Magazine Racks                      347
      XL. The Medicine Cabinet                               354
     XLI. Mission Furniture                                  361
    XLII. The Chest                                          377
   XLIII. The Drawing Outfit                                 381
    XLIV. Woodwork for Outdoor Sports--The Tennis
          Court, Tennis Court Accessories                    399
     XLV. The Pergola                                        426
    XLVI. Poultry Houses                                     441
   XLVII. Housing of Outdoor Pets                            451
  XLVIII. Outdoor Carpentry                                  457
    XLIX. Staining, Polishing, and Finishing                 481
       L. Durability: Decay and Preservation of Wood         492
      LI. Mathematics of Woodwork                            498
     LII. Lumber No. 1                                       510
    LIII. Lumber No. 2                                       517
     LIV. Lumber No. 3                                       524
      LV. Lumber No. 4                                       532
     LVI. Broad-leaved Trees                                 543
    LVII. Trees with Simple Leaves                           556




ILLUSTRATIONS


  The Shop--The Most Interesting Place in the
      World on a Stormy Day           _Frontispiece_

                                        FACING PAGE

  The Boy and his Jack Knife                      8
  Using the Veining Tool                        118
  Using the Jack Plane                          146
  Learning to Use the Crosscut Saw              170
  Tools of the Seventeenth Century              178
  The Correct Way to Hold the Chisel            208
  Assembling and Finishing                      374
  Staining and Polishing                        484




CARPENTRY AND WOODWORK




I

INTRODUCTORY


Two boys sat on a log whittling. Conversation had ceased and they both
seemed absorbed in their work. Presently the younger one became aware
of the silence and glanced at the older boy. He gave an exclamation and
jumped to his feet. "Why," he cried, "you are making a knife out of
wood. Isn't it a beauty! Is it a dagger?"

"No" replied the other, "it is a paper-knife for opening letters and
cutting the pages of magazines. It is for father's desk, for his
birthday."

"It's a dandy!" continued the youngster. "How can you make such fine
things? Why can't I do that kind of work?"

"You can do it," replied Ralph, "but just now there are several reasons
why you don't."

"What are they?"

"Well, in the first place you start to whittle without having any clear
idea of what you are at work on. It's for all the world like setting
out to walk without knowing where you are going. If you start that
way, the probabilities are that you will get nowhere, and when you get
back and father asks where you have been, you say, 'Oh, nowhere; just
took a walk.' That's the way with your knife work. You just whittle and
make a lot of chips, and when you get through you have nothing to show
for your time and labour. If you want to know a secret--I never start
to cut without first making a careful sketch of just what I want to
make, with all the important dimensions on it.

"Another reason you don't get any results is that you don't know how to
hold your knife, and still another is that you work with a dull tool.
Why, that knife of yours is hardly sharp enough to cut butter."

"Will you show me how to do that kind of work?" asked the youngster
humbly.

"Yes; on certain conditions."

"What are they?"

"That you will do just as I tell you."

"Will you show me how to make a paper-cutter now?"

"There you go, right off the handle! You are like a young man learning
carpentry; you want to start right in to build a house instead of first
learning how to use your tools. Why, it has taken me two years in the
manual training school to learn how to do this work. No, indeed,
if you want to learn