Cutting edge

“ Just as a strong man in cutting down a mighty tree to be used as the peaked roof of a pagoda, if the edge of his axe be turned in lopping off the branches and twigs, will not despair of cutting down the tree, but will go to an iron-worker's shop, have his axe sharpened, return, and go on with his cutting ”

“ The axes and adzes hitherto considered have been chiefly regarded as tools for the greatest amount of heavy work to be accomplished by a workman. They are at one extreme of the scale, the other extreme being the removal of such small flakes as to become shavings of varying thickness. In progressing from great to small, the order would be from the axe or adze with its weighted head to a separation of the cutting-edge and its necessary metal, and the weight which must give the blow. ”

“ If the neck were as wide as the shoulders, and the chest and the blades, that is, if the body would run straight up from these points, then the top edge could be fitted with nothing else but a square piece of cloth. ”

“ By placing a straight edge on each side of the body, on and along the slanting side of each leg, they would form an angle of fifteen degrees. These slopes are certainly the longest and straightest lines that can be drawn on the human form, and there is no reason to contend that they are not good lines to use as bases for cutting pants. The longest and straightest lines are always the best to be used as bases to work from for almost anything. ”

“ I was sitting on the edge of the bed, my gown partly off and my hair hanging down over my shoulders—I was as thin as a rail—feasting my eyes on my four little ones rolling a ball on the floor; my big boy, Louis, who was eight, and Pauly and Marie and three year-old Catherine; no one, not if they were worth millions, could have had grander children! with their beautiful, clear, rosy skins, their blue eyes and light wavy hair, and their lovely sturdy legs. ”

“ All that can be done is to point out certain forms; and the cutter who starts out on his cutting tour through life must always be on his guard, and study his customers, and imprint their forms upon his own brain. ”

“ So much might be said on this topic that we feel we should be overlooking a most important factor in successful cutting if we did not make some allusion to it, for not only must we have the seams to run in graceful curves and devoid of all sharp angles, etc., but they must be also arranged so as to bring out the special points of beauty which exist in a more or less degree in every figure, as well as toning down other prominent points which detract from its graceful appearance. ”

“ The reason for finishing the outside first is to secure smooth rings in cutting off, as this operation should be done when the work is running concentric with the bore, rather than with the exterior surface. ”

“ This is another point which cannot be learned by rules, or from books, or in cutting schools, but must be acquired by practice, after a cutter’s mind has been directed to it, and his mind must be clear always, and never be benumbed by whisky, or by tobacco, nor by fast women. ”

“ As you have watched work on a house, have you ever stopped to figure how very much of a workman's time was spent in first measuring, then cutting, then trying and perhaps refitting the material—all this is against the very small amount of time required for fastening and nailing? Well, we save you all that fuss and waste by furnishing the material not merely cut, but cut to fit more accurately than hand labor ever could. ”

“ The modern method is that of numerous facets, geometrically disposed to bring out the beauty of light and colour to the best advantage. This is done at the sacrifice of material, often to the extent of half the stone or even more—the opposite of the Oriental idea. There are various forms of such cutting, but three are specially employed, known as the brilliant, the rose and the table-cut. ”

“ In order to preserve the educational value of the work as brought out by skill and dexterity in handling tools, it will be necessary to use the cutting method wherever possible. In some instances that method will be impossible, and the scraping method must be used. ”

“ After tremendous efforts he managed to withdraw these nails and with infinite patience whetted them against stones until he secured a sharp knifelike edge. Just think of that, boys, when you read of modern hardships endured by men left to their own resources in a forest. Imagine rubbing a ship’s spike back and forth upon a stone until it has been transformed into a knife! ”

“ The python on the branch, I imagine, is often engaged in "cutting out." "In farming," he added, for he was giving a lesson, "you ought to cut out fresh every day, and not every week, as some farmers do—though I've knowed them as never cut out at all. And cutting out's a thing you can never learn in books and colleges. It comes by experience—and a light hand. Sometimes you must cut out rough, and sometimes you must cut out fine—mostly according to the weather and the time o' year—and always leave a bit somewhere as isn't cut out at all. ”

“ Hear the peculiar sounding of the heart-strokes, when the lofty, well-poised structure is balancing itself, and quivering through every fibre and leaf and twig on the few unsevered tendons that have not yet felt the keen edge of the woodman’s steel. ”

“ At my right hand is a woman cutting wood. This is part of the women’s work, and they have learned the art of using their cutlasses so well, that, in a short time, they cut and carry on their heads more than I can raise from the ground. ”

“ But it could be easily understood, both by the law-maker and by others, that the beauty, the quality, and the price of glass are heightened by the process of cutting, and it was equally notorious or susceptible of proof, that the process of cutting is accomplished by but one species of operation, viz.: the operation of grinding. ”

“ The first cut should, if possible, be deep enough to get beneath the scale, especially if turning cast iron, as a tool which just grazes the hard outer surface will be dulled in a comparatively short time. ”

“ When the tool begins to take the full depth e of the cut, the point, which ordinarily would be set a little above the center, tends to spring downward into the work, and if there were considerable springing action, the part would probably be turned below the finished size, the increased reduction beginning at the point where the full cut started. ”

“ There will be many men who will move one against another, holding in their hands a cutting tool. But these will not do each other any injury beyond tiring each other; for, when one pushes forward the other will draw back. But woe to him who comes between them! For he will end by being cut in pieces. ”

“ As the scope of the work is very wide it will be as well to view it more as a treatise on practical cutting, adapted to youths and juveniles, than as a pure and simple juvenile work; accordingly we shall endeavour to explain such principles as will stand the test of meeting the vastly different wants of all the seven ages of man. ”

“ A cut, however close, leaves a base from which they may always spring again, but if pulled or wrenched out they bring away with them the swollen base that, if left in, would be a likely source of future trouble. ”

“ The labor of taking the granite from the mountains, bringing it on to this ground and cutting it and putting it in position is immense You saw a great many prepared stones that are not laid: I will explain how that has happened. We had a good many beginners who could shape a rough stone, but not so many stonecutters who could do a finished job, and all the stones for the outside had to be done by skillful workmen. A great number of those that you see lying round, numbered up as high as thirteen or fourteen courses, were cut by men who were not skilled workmen. ”

“ The cut represents the usual form of harrow, having a number of iron spikes or teeth attached to frames of which two or more are united together by chains and attached to a bar, that the horses may drag them over the surface of the soil. ”

“ Cutting is easy by the slicing wheels of lapidaries, or in the way in which marble is sawn: but polishing is very difficult, and by employing the ordinary means one more often depolishes the surfaces than makes them lucent. ”

“ The way to cut anything out is—cut it out!—a quick slash—just cut. If you make a dozen little slashes, each of them hurts as much as the one big slash—and the dozen hurt twelve times as much—bleed twelve times as much—put off the cure a lot more than twelve times as long. ”

“ Very rarely, if ever has a work so comprehensive been published in connection with the art of cutting. For though nominally a work on Juvenille Cutting, it embraces nearly every garment made by tailors. ”

“ Your system of levelling, and trimming, and clipping, and docking, and clumping, and polishing, and cropping, and shaving, destroys all the beautiful intricacies of natural luxuriance, and all the graduated harmonies of light and shade, melting into one another, as you see them on that rock over yonder. ”

“ Those will do best, which before being cut off from the mother branch, have been either ringed, or burned, or skinned, below a bud, so as to form a knot above the wound. There are many different ways of putting out cuttings. ”

“ Another method is to tool the edge before burnishing, or the different portions of the tooling may be so managed in burnishing that some parts will be left bright and standing in relief on the unburnished or dead surface. ”

“ I have known the light grinders very much shaken by a breaking stone, and away from work a month after it. And, working among saw-grinders, who use heavy stones, and stand over them in working, I've seen—Billy, go and look at thy shilling, in the yard, and see which is brightest, it or the moon. Is he gone? I've seen three men die within a few yards of me. ”

“ Could he destroy a Thing that was able to bore a thirty foot hole through solid rock, swallow a river and digest grinding stones like so many pills? One thing he was sure of — he could accomplish nothing without knowing more about it. To know more, he had to watch. He determined to cut a hole through the floor. ”

“ If a cutter is what may be termed a “natural-born” cutter, all such things will come to him; but if he is not so gifted, then he must train himself to it, and in no other way will he succeed as a cutter. ”

“ The first and most obvious thing to do, the thing that in many cases is being attempted and in a futile, insufficient way getting itself done, the thing that I do not for one moment regard as the final remedy, is the remedy of the architect and builder—profitable enough to them, anyhow—to widen the streets and to cut "new arteries." ”

“ There are cuts as fresh as if the chip had just flown from the axeman’s blow, and there are scars from cuts made last autumn which nature’s sap, rising as it does in the veins of wounded men, has healed while it sent forth leaves in answer to the call of spring from the remaining branches. ”

“ Accurate calculation and sharp straight cutting are absolutely necessary for even moderate success in this undertaking. As before mentioned, there is more than one method of securing a neck to an old head. ”

“ Habit will at once make the movements actual again wherever expedient,—on all descents of medium difficulty, or on easy descents where a slip might have dangerous consequences, such as the edge of a lofty ridge, or an easy gallery above a sheer wall. ”

“ And the strongest chains may be broken, the thickest wall pierced through,—steep ramparts have been scaled before now,—and you might one day burst your yoke and be again let loose upon society, like an infuriated beast, marking your passage with murder and destruction; for none would be safe from your Herculean strength, or from the sharpness of your knife ”

“ Cut in the face of the rock is a walled and winding way down to the water. I see below the archway where it issues from the underground recesses of our establishment; and there stands a bust, in serious expectation that some one will walk out and saunter down among the rocks ”

“ To fit the form of men, making the change of fashions to conform to the fit. The Bases I have adopted are new, in the science of Garment-Cutting, and all calculations are based upon horizontal, perpendicular and parallel measures and lines. ”

“ And those iron cliffs, that, in the honesty of their rugged rage, break the masterpieces of man to fragments, they are better than the treacherous sands, for they do their work quickly, and with the aid of the angry waves. ”

“ Others lay with dreadfully goggling eyes and labouring gills, clinging to life and slapping the marble slab desperately with their tails—until such time as their fate was at hand, when somebody would seize them and cut their throats with a crunching sound. ”

“ To tear a piece from the interior, where no edge is presented, could only be effected by a miracle through the agency of thorns, and no one thorn could accomplish it. But, even where an edge is presented, two thorns will be necessary, operating, the one in two distinct directions, and the other in one. And this in the supposition that the edge is unhemmed. ”

“ Making combs on nearly the same principles as those pursued by their forefathers—that is, by simply cutting out the interspace between the teeth, with various sorts and sizes of saws—its followers, barely entitled to the name of skilled workmen, were dissipated, unsettled, and irregular in their habits. ”

“ All that can be done by a teacher is to point out causes and effects and approximate amounts for alteration; and a cutter must use his brains to pass judgment as to the amount taken off here, and given there, in each individual case, and that the ever varying forms of men will require an ever watchful cutter to fit it with such garments as a changeable fashion from time to time requires. Learning rules or going to cutting schools and hanging up a diploma near the cutting board don’t make successful cutters. ”