Woodworking

“ Others admit that it ought to have a place but feel that the results obtained do not justify the time spent upon it. Still others approach the whole field of woodworking from the side of design, tool processes and organized woodworking subject matter being mere incidents to the problem in design. ”

“ It is taken for granted that the interested reader is familiar with the use of the common hand tools for woodworking or that he can, with some assistance, perhaps, easily command their use. It is not thought necessary, therefore, to describe in detail the proper method of using tools, but rather to offer practical suggestions on the selection, preparation and constructive use of woodworking materials and, in the series of problems which follow, to give some helpful hints on the way woodworking tools should be used. ”

“ The classes in woodworking are among the most important at the school. The institute now owns a large tract of valuable timber land, while among the industrial buildings on the grounds is a good sawmill. equipped with the necessary machinery. Whatever lumber is needed in the erection of the buildings is cut on the timber lot, drawn to the mill, and sawed. In this way one class learns to saw and handle lumber. ”

“ Such woodworking tools as coarse and fine toothed hand saws, a good square, a splendid assortment of hammers and the different kinds of wrenches, screw clamps, boring tools—in fact a complete assortment of handy woodworking tools is an absolute necessity on a well-managed farm. ”

“ It is from the bark of the birch that the Indians [17] made their canoes, but this is a story of the long ago and we must stick to the present.
Walnut. —This is a good old English wood; it is the finest kind of wood that can be used for ornamental furniture, gun stocks and wherever else a beautiful color and a showy grain are wanted. It is easier to work than oak and is a fine wood for carving.
How to Make Joints. —The word joint in woodworking means the place where two or more pieces of wood are fitted together, and hence the words joiner and joinery in woodworking parlance.
Fig. 3. ”

“ The form in outline is the artist's palette, and the opening for the picture an ellipse.
All the lines in the carving converge to a point to the left of the centre of the opening.
[133] XIV
THE SHOP
The man who is most successful is the one who is best prepared for his work. In beginning to learn how to use woodworking tools, the average boy is very often hampered by the lack of facilities. The place he is to use for his shop should at least have good light. Many of the lines he uses are knife lines, which are harder to see than pencil lines, so that light at least is an essential. ”

“ It treats of the “every-day” practical problem of the carpenter and house-builder from the “laying of foundations” to the completion of the “interior finish.” $1.00.
WOODWORK FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS. By Griffith. A textbook for high schools, colleges and technical schools. It contains chapters on woods, tools and processes, joinery, turning, carving, inlaying, wood finishing, pattern making, and the use of woodworking machines. It is a well-balanced and authoritative text, presupposing a knowledge of elementary tool processes. Specially adapted to secondary schools. ”

“ The harmony of related parts—the balance of shaft and handle or the geometry of the twist—makes the auger a decorative object. This is not to say that the ancient woodworker's tool is not a document attesting a society's technical proficiency—ingenuity, craftsmanship, and productivity. It is only to suggest again that it is something more; a survival of the past whose intrinsic qualities permit it to stand alone as a bridge between the craftsman's hand and his work ”

“ Fig. 234 (button wood, button-ball tree, water beech) : Wood moderately heavy, quite hard, stiff, strong, tough, usually crossgrained, of coarse texture, and white to light brown color; the wood is hard to split and work, shrinks moderately, warps and checks considerably but stands well. It is used extensively for drawers, backs, bottoms, etc., in cabinetwork, for tobacco boxes, in cooperage, and also for finishing lumber, where it has too long been underrated. ”

“ The heavier the wood, the darker, stronger and harder it is, and the more it shrinks and checks. Pine is used more extensively than any other kind of wood. It is the principal wood in common carpentry, as well as in all heavy construction, bridges, trestles, etc. ”

“ Wood is the only building material that grows. For that reason it is seldom perfect and is more subject to the action of heat or moisture than any other building material. It must be protected against damage from these elements from the time the tree is felled—during the time it is being made into woodwork in the factory, while in storage, in transit, in the hands of your painter and finisher, and even during the years that it is in your home. The construction of Curtis Woodwork takes account of these factors and minimizes the chances of your woodwork “going wrong” after it leaves our hands. ”

“ Carry the plane parallel with the grain when it is possible, and take no more shavings off than is necessary to attain the desired results. The young workman should make a study of the grain and the peculiarities of the different kinds of lumber upon which he works, losing no opportunity to experiment upon and compare the qualities of every available wood.
(E.) In using edge tools of every kind, little is gained, and much is often lost, by working with dull tools; tools should be sharpened often and thoroughly. ”

“ In a separate part of the factory they attend to the cleaning and filling of the wood and to whatever finish is applied to the work of the joiner. It is hardly necessary to add that the finishing of all kinds of woodwork is quite as important as any other feature in its production; for, however good the lines of design may be and however thoroughly the design may be carried out in the construction of any piece of furniture or other woodwork, it may be and often is spoiled as a work of art in the finishing. ”

“ I had naturally useful hands, and learned the pleasure and utility of being able to do things with them. I took naturally to woodwork, and spent nearly all my Sundays in the carpenter shop, where I cut and bruised my hands, and butchered wood into clumsy, ill-fitting and rickety benches, stools and boxes, which amused our mechanic greatly. But with perseverance, patience and time my skill improved, so that before I left the mill I had become something of an artist in wood, and could really do a very nice and creditable job in joining and fitting. ”

“ There is scarcely a use to which wood may not be applied, whether as fuel for fires, timber for building, furniture both useful and ornamental, various parts of machinery, vessels to contain wine and other fluids, handles to instruments, (for in cold climates and cold weather metal cannot be handled with impunity) , and indeed for all uses in which lightness, dryness, warmth, and variety of form are desirable, wood serves as an excellent material. The kind of trees that produce wood fit for building and other useful purposes are those called by the botanists exogenous. ”

“ The principal tools with which they operate are the axe, the adze, the saw, the auger, the gauge, the square, the compasses, the hammer, the mallet, the crow, the rule, the level, the maul, and the plane; and of many of these there are several kinds. [113]
8. The timbers most employed in building in the United States are chiefly pine, oak, beech, black walnut, cypress, larch, white cedar, and hemlock; but of these pine is in the greatest use. Oak and beech are much used in constructing frames, in which great strength is required. ”

“ Much wood is used in decoration and furniture, where appearance, appropriateness, and finish are called for; but these woods, although much in evidence, are infinitely less in quantity than those employed in construction. Some wood is required for implements, turnery, carvings, and small-piece work, where size is secondary and where qualities such as hardness, fine grain, and uniformity, controllable in small pieces, are primary. Some wood is used indirectly, as in the manufacture of paper-pulp, gunpowder, and chemicals. ”

“ Woodwork was decorated with painted ornament or with fanciful work on the hinges; and nails and clamps were applied to hold it together, rather than with sculpture, down to the fourteenth century; and in England, France, and Germany, oak was the wood employed for furniture. Both in England and in the countries which had retained old artistic traditions on the continent, such as Italy, France, and Spain (which profited by the skill of the Moors in painted decoration) , colour was used not less on walls and wood than on metal and pottery. ”

“ What I wish to say is, that finishing your woodwork without paint does not, necessarily, require the said wood to be of the kinds commonly called "hard." Any wood that is not specially disposed to warp, and that can be smoothly wrought, may be used. Those you mention are all good; so are half a dozen more,—the different kinds of ash, yellow-pine, butternut, white-wood, cherry, cedar, even hemlock and spruce in some situations. There are several important points to be religiously observed if you leave the wood, whatever the variety, in its unadorned beauty. ”

“ The woodman at work — Tree-cutting in frosty weather — Preparing sticks and stakes — Winter Jasmine — Ferns in the wood-walk — Winter colour of evergreen shrubs — Copse-cutting — Hoop-making — Tools used — Sizes of hoops — Men camping out — Thatching with hoop-chips — The old thatcher's bill.
It is good to watch a clever woodman and see how much he can do with his simple tools, and how easily one man alone can deal with heavy pieces of timber. An oak trunk, two feet or more thick, and weighing perhaps a ton, lies on the ground, the branches being already cut off. ”

“ It is wood engineered for beauty, strength, and economical application. Its peculiar excellence, as contrasted with solid wood, results from equalizing the normal internal stresses of the wood by running alternate layers in different directions. In standard five-ply construction, widely used for good furniture, the two outer and the middle ply, or core, have the grain running in the same direction, while the second and fourth plies, or cross bands, have the grain running at right angles to that of the others. ”

“ Bending to a certain extent does not weaken wood, but stretching the same has been found to impair and destroy its strength.
The principal problems which the inventors of the century have solved in the class of wood-working have been the adaptation to rapid-working machinery of the saw and other blades, to sever; the plane to smooth, the auger, the bit and the gimlet to bore, the hammer to drive, and a combination of all or a part of these to shape and finish the completed article. ”

“ The employment of wood for articles of domestic use or ornament, gives rise to many departments of mechanical labour, according to the manner in which the grain of the wood is to be made conspicuous or visible. In the antique pieces of furniture still existing in old mansions, the wood employed, such as oak, walnut-wood, mahogany, &c., was always solid ”

“ To the invention of wood-working machinery we are also indebted for the awakening of interest in the qualities of wood for a vast number of artistic purposes. It was a revelation, at the great Philadelphia Exposition of 1876, to behold the specimens of different woods from all the forests of the earth, selected and assembled to display their wonderful grain and other qualities, and showing how well nature was storing up for us in its silent shades those growths which were waiting the genius of invention to convert into forms of use and beauty for every home. ”

“ Aberdeen enthusiasts identify themselves by means of the "Glad Hand," also made of local plywood. There are more than 30 wood- working plants of various types near the water front, and their output includes furniture, sounding boards for pianos, and numberless items of woodenware. The lumber industry finds itself today at the beginning of a new era, in which chemistry and scientific technological processes will permit a fuller exploitation of the economic possibilities of the wood cell. Illus- trating this development is the comparatively recent rise of wood pulp, rayon, and paper manufacture. ”

“ CHAPTER XII. TOOLS FOR WOOD TURNING. It does not seem necessary to go into the discussion of tools, or shapes of tools, for wood turning, for the grand and great reliance for roughing is the gouge, and a skillful workman will do as many things with it as the Russian carpenter is said to do with his axe, which is almost his only tool. For smoothing, there is the flat chisel, and for special work, every one will find tools, or, rather, make those he finds best suited to his needs. ”

“ Trees have been found 190 feet high and ten feet in diameter. Used in cooperage, for siding, for panelling and finishing lumber in houses, car- and shipbuilding, for sideboards, panels of wagons and carriages, for aeroplanes, [82] for automobiles, also in the manufacture of furniture farm implements, machinery, for pump logs, and almost every kind of common woodenware, boxes shelving, drawers, etc., etc. Also in the manufacture of toys, culinary woodenware, and backing for veneer. It is in great demand throughout the vehicle and implement trade, and also makes a fair grade of wood pulp. ”

“ Fig. 17.—Lumber Scale.
13. Qualities of wood.— (A.) Certain kinds of wood are adapted for some purposes better than are others; the wood-worker, therefore, should be familiar with the qualities which conditions demand, and the kinds of woods which have these qualities.
Lumber for framing should be strong and durable; it should be cut from trees which grow to a size that will allow large dimensions to be cut from them.
For outside finish, the material should be wood which [Pg 28] will stand the weather, can be easily worked, and will hold its shape well. ”