Broom (tool)

“ They carry their brooms, not under the left arm, but upon it, as they would children, upright between the arm and the side, with the heads in front of the shoulder. One, and one only, of the brooms is invariably held in the right hand, and this is elevated with the sharp cry of 'Buy a Broom?' to any one likely to become a purchaser, till it is either purchased or declined. ”

“ As each stitch was formed the machine fed the broom along laterally and intermittently. By another ingenious device the cord was tied and cut, when the sewing was completed.
It is only by such machines which treat the entire article from the first to the last step, that the immense number of brooms now necessary to supply the market are made. True it is that at first labour was displaced. At one time seventeen skilled workmen would manufacture five hundred dozen brooms per week. ”

“ Reverse—Arms!—Lift the broom vertically with the right hand, clasp the stick with the left hand; then, with the right hand grasp the handle near the brush. Reverse the broom, the handle dropping to the front, the broom passing between the breast and right forearm. Press the handle under the arm with the left hand until the right elbow can hold it in place against the body; pass left hand behind the back and clasp the stick. ”

“ Useful and extensive as is its use, the broom does not compare in variety and wide application to the brush. The human body, cloth, leather, metals, wood and grains, everything that needs rubbing, cleaning, painting and polishing, meets the acquaintance of the brush. Nearly a hundred species of brushes might be enumerated, each having an especial construction for a particular use. ”

“ So far as I have it in my heart to use my new broom for the cleansing of my home and the comfort of my fellows, my new broom may be a means of grace to me and them; but, so far as I view the new broom merely as a possession, and irrespective of the service in which it should be worn out, my pride in it is bad as bad can be. ”

“ After trying to move a heavy trunk alone, the attempt is usually given up until some friend can be called in to lend a hand, because a truck or other means of handling such heavy objects is not at hand. An ordinary sweeping broom will serve as a sled to move a stove or similar object in the home without heavy lifting. ”

“ She will have to see for herself that the broom is hung up or stood on the handle instead of on the bristle end, that the brushes and dust-pans not only have their nails or hooks, but are kept on them when not in use instead of being thrown into a corner of the kitchen and kicked about by any one who finds them in the way. ”

“ The boys and girls did not grow rich very fast at broom-making. Throughout Vermont, fifty years ago, the uniform price paid to the maker for these brooms was but six cents apiece, and as he had to work at least three evenings to make one broom,—to say nothing of the time spent in selecting and cutting the birch-tree,—it was not so profitable an industry as gathering beech-nuts at a dollar a bushel. ”

“ To Preserve Brooms.--Dip them for a minute or two in a kettle of boiling
suds once a week and they will last much longer, making them tough and
pliable. A carpet wears much longer swept with a broom cared for in this
manner.
To Clean Brassware.--Mix one ounce of oxalic acid, six ounces of rotten
stone, all in powder, one ounce of sweet oil, and sufficient water to
make a paste. Apply a small proportion, and rub dry with a flannel or
leather. The liquid dip most generally used consists of nitric and
sulphuric acids, but this is more corrosive. ”

“ The broom-millet was grown most successfully on the estate. The stalk had been cut up and consigned to the silos by the ton. Thousands of bushels of the seed, much like sorghum, had been deposited in the poultry-farm granary. The broom fibres—oft blessed by all who ever possessed a foul pipe—were now being manufactured by old folk and children into an article superior to any "American broom." The fibre was quickly gathered together by hand, and bound round with fine wire worked by a spindle. ”

“ No broom that nowadays grows on the brae, so yellow as the broom—the golden broom—the broom that seemed still to keep the hills in sunlight long after the sun himself had sunk—the broom in which we first found the lintwhite's nest—and of its petals, more precious than pearls, saw framed a wreath for the dark hair of that dark-eyed girl, an orphan, and melancholy even in her merriment—dark-haired and dark-eyed indeed, but whose forehead, whose bosom, were yet whiter than the driven snow. ”

“ Remove the pieces from the box one by one and clean with a broom, taking care not to waste the residue, after which, chill in a sufficient body of clear, cold water, and there will be a uniform coat of actual steel on the entire surface of the work to the depth of 1⁄16 or 1⁄8 of an inch, according to the time it is left in the fire. The longer it is left in the fire the deeper will be the coat of steel. ”

“ Fig. 528. strung together with a coarse needle and thread. If he is too limber, give him a backbone by running a slender stick through the back of the head and body. Make him a paper hat shaped like a wide-mouthed horn, and cut out a paper face and paste it on the little man’s head; then tie the sheer white bag across his shoulders, fasten it at the side with a pin and fill the bag with sweets; the broom can be fashioned of a wooden toothpick with a bunch of broom-straws bound upon one end. ”

“ The radial faces of wrought iron must be finished as smoothly and true as possible, because being harder than cast iron the emery acts less rapidly upon it. For radial faces on brass the surfaces should be finished as smooth as possible with the slide rest tool, which should be round nosed, with the round flattened somewhat where the tool cuts, and the tool should not, under any condition, have any rake on its top face, while the feed should be fine as, say, 32 revolutions per inch of tool travel. ”

“ When a tool of this kind is to be used on iron, steel, or copper, and not upon brass, the front face of the teeth may be given rake by cutting the grooves at an angle, as in Fig. 1109.
Boring Tools for Lathe Work.—The principal object in forming a boring tool to be held in a slide rest is to have the body of the tool as large as can be conveniently got into the size of the hole to be bored; hence the cutting edge should not stand above the level of the top of the steel. ”

“ From some of the pans we see coolies lifting big lumps of a white substance that looks like very heavy dough. These are put into a machine which tears them into small pieces. A second machine, which has rollers covered with a diamond pattern, kneads the pieces together, and turns out a long strip of material which looks like tripe. When this has been passed two or three times through a third machine, which has smooth-faced rollers, a strip of “crêpe” rubber is ready to be taken to the drying-room or to the smoking-room. ”

“ They had reduced the force of earlier times by making larger quantities by better processes. Then when the broom-sewing machines and other inventions got fairly to work, nine men would turn out twelve hundred dozen brooms per week. ”

“ The tools are simple and can be made easily. First make a round-nosed mallet of some hard wood, which should have a diameter of about 1-1/4 in, across the head. If nothing better is at hand, saw off a section of a broom handle, round one end and insert a handle into a hole bored in its middle. Next take a block of wood, about 3 by 3 by 6 in., and make in one end a hollow, about 2 in. across and 1/2 in. deep. Fasten the block solidly, as in a vise, and while holding the copper on the hollowed end of the block, beat with the mallet along the concentric rings. ”

“ Whether one or two set-screws are used, the boring tool may be forged from a single bar of octagon steel, which can be seated in a piece like that shown at e in Fig. 610, which is grooved so as to receive and hold the tool. As is well known, boring tools are the most troublesome both to forge and to adjust in the lathe, and, as the result, a light tool is often used because no other is at hand and it is costly to make a new one. ”

“ The speed for turning soft brass is much higher than for steel, being ordinarily between 150 and 200 feet per minute. When turning phosphor, tobin or other tough bronze compositions, the tool should be ground with rake the same as for turning steel, and lard oil is sometimes used as a lubricant. The cutting speed for bronzes varies from 35 or 40 to 80 feet per minute, owing to the difference in the composition of bronze alloys. ”

“ To be sure we were glad to go, and he did as he said he would, and explained every particular, even to the cost.
“The broom-corn comes from the West,” he said, “though a good deal grows in the Mohawk valley, and the largest broom establishment in the United States is at Schenectady.
“It often grows, if thriving stalks, ten or twelve feet tall; it can be cultivated here, but not so profitably. It comes in large bales, weighing anywhere from one hundred and fifty to five hundred pounds. Where I buy mine in Boston it costs me six cents a pound, though the price varies. ”

“ Immediately the broom, or whatever else it was, was taken by all the people for a [80] man like themselves; he went out, drew water, ordered our victuals, and waited upon us in every respect as handily as the completest domestic. When his attendance was no longer necessary, my companion spoke a couple of other words, and the broom was again a broom, the pestle again a pestle, as before. ”

“ The end of a brass tool is sometimes ground with a straight cutting edge for turning large rigid work, such as brass pump linings, etc., so that a coarse feed can be used without leaving a rough surface. The tools at N and O are for boring or finishing drilled or cored holes. Two sizes are shown, which are intended for small and large holes, respectively.
The different tools referred to in the foregoing might be called the standard types because they are the ones generally used, and as Fig. 2 indicates, they make it possible to turn an almost [58] endless variety of forms. ”

“ The description of Barber's brace documents a major technical change: wood to steel, leather washers to ball bearings, and natural patina to nickel plate. It is also an explanation for the appearance and shape of craftmen's tools, either hand forged or mass produced. In each case, the sought-after result in the form of a finished product has been an implement of "fineness and beauty." This quest motivated three centuries of toolmakers and brought vitality to hand-tool design. Moxon had advised:
He that will a good Edge win,
Must Forge thick and Grind thin. ”

“ The tool must not be treated as a blacksmith does iron, nothing like so hot, but so as to be of a dull cherry color. Steel that will not harden at this heat is poor stock. When so heated, plunge it into cold water. This will make the tool hard and brittle, like glass, so that it is not fit to cut with; you must then rub it bright on a piece of emery paper or a grindstone, and hold it in the fire for a second or so at a time, until the temper is drawn to the right degree of toughness and tenacity. This will be, for turning-tools for hard wood, of a dull blue-brown, say violet, color. ”

“ A pleasing way to use a broom is to lean upon the wall and not do more than make any one who is the one welcome. This if it is pleasing is pleasing and working is industry. That does not change everything. Intending to remove the dirt does not destroy the variegated color. The color is not a stain. ”

“ To use this machine, take out this drawer, lay the feet of the goneometer on the brass, put the slide-rest tool, No. 4, into the tool box, screw it firm, then slide the tool box along the groove till it arrives at the proper angle, say 45; fix it with the nut underneath, then raise the whole brass plate, 1, sliding it along the tongue, 3, till at the exact height necessary for the tool to touch the Turkey stone. Rub it backwards and forwards upon it with oil. When one side is sharp, move the tool slide to the opposite angle, to sharpen the other. ”

“ Any traces left by the cloth, used for drying off, can be easily evened out again by the brush.
By making use of this soaking of the print during the work, the bromoil printer is absolutely unlimited in the time used for his work and is not driven by any necessity for haste. He can continue his work in peace and without hurry, and devote himself to any particular part of his picture at will, without being afraid that other parts will meanwhile lose their capacity for being worked up. ”

“ By having such a tool as this, the necessity of laying one tool down and picking up another, is obviated, for the two are combined in one. For iron work, it is customary to use a heavier and thicker tool for finishing. As in Fig. 10, the front edge is slightly raised or concave, to make it sharp and hold a cut well. All turning tools for finishing iron are made thicker than those for brass, and should have lips, or curved cutting edges. Such tools cannot be used for brass, as they are too sharp; the edges jump into the metal and spoil the work. ”

“ Bramah's machine consists of a large and massive cylinder, in which there works an accurately-fitted solid piston or plunger. A forcing-pump of very small bore communicates with the bottom of the cylinder, and by the action of the pump-handle or lever, exceeding small quantities of water are forced in succession beneath the piston in the large cylinder, thus gradually raising it up, and compressing bodies whose bulk or volume it is intended to reduce. Hence it is most commonly used as a packing-press, being superior to every other contrivance of the kind that has yet been invented ”