Handicraft for boys

A very pretty and most useful kind of ornamental iron work came into vogue in Venice, Italy, a long time ago, and as it is easy to do and you need only a few tools and inexpensive materials to do it with, you ought to try your hand at it.

Venetian iron work consists of bending thin, narrow strips of wrought iron into scrolls and other shapes and then fixing them together with little iron clamps called binders.

In this way objects such as egg boilers, candlestick sconces, lanterns and brackets to hang them on, photograph frames and helpful and artistic creations without end can be made.

The Tools You Must Have.

—You will need very few tools for making Venetian iron work and these are (1) a pair of flat nose 5 inch pliers;[26] (2) a pair of round nose 5 inch pliers; (3) a box-wood four-fold, 2-foot rule; (4) a vise; (5) a pair of tinner’s snips and (6) a small riveting hammer, all of which are shown in Fig. 27.

The Materials You Need.

—The work is made of ¹⁄₃₂ inch thick soft iron strips and this can be bought[27] in four different widths, namely ¹⁄₈, ³⁄₁₆, ¹⁄₄, and ³⁄₈ inch.

In general it is the best practice to use the ³⁄₁₆ and ¹⁄₄ inch wide strips for all designs except the smallest and largest. The strip iron comes in coils of 50 feet and the prices range from 16 cents to 25 cents a coil.

Then you will need a package of binders—these are merely bits of strip iron cut off and bent as shown in Fig. 30, they come in four widths and cost about 10 cents a hundred. Also get a couple of 3 foot pieces of lead wire for with these you can quickly form the scrolls and circles you intend to make of iron, then straighten them out and accurately measure off the length of iron you need. They cost 5 cents a strip.

What to Do First.

—Making a Simple Design.—The first thing to do after you get your tools and materials together is to draw on a sheet of paper the object you are to make of bent iron.

How to Make a Toaster.

—This is a good piece of work to start with because it is formed chiefly of straight lines. Draw a plan of it as shown in Fig. 31, full size and then measure the frame and the inside strips—you will observe that there are two of the latter—and find out exactly how long each strip should be.

Now measure and cut off three strips of iron and allow an extra inch for lapping the long strip that forms the frame. This done mark off the points where the strips are to be bent and use your flat nose pliers to bend the sharp corners and your round nose pliers to bend the curved parts of the frame.

Lap the ends of the strip forming the frame on the side ¹⁄₂ an inch, fasten the joint by putting a binder on it with your pliers and a light tap with your hammer will tighten it up.

Now if you will look again at Fig. 31, you will see that one end of the right inside strip projects up and beyond the rest of it and this end sets in the handle of the frame and strengthens it; put a binder on each place where it is shown in the drawing including the handle. Fix in the left inside bent strip with binders and put the binders on so that the rough ends will be inside, file down the rough places, rub the toaster all over with a piece of fine emery cloth until it is nice and smooth, rub it with some sweet oil, polish it off with a soft cloth and then present it to Pietro or Hilda or Wo Nang Fong or whoever it is that presides over the kitchen.

How to Make an Egg Boiler.

—Having made the toaster you are ready to try your hand at something a little harder and a good design for your next piece of work is an egg boiler.

The picture may look a little complicated but as a matter of fact there is very little to it. There are only three parts to the egg boiler and these are (a) the egg holders; (b) the legs, and (c) the handle. Each of the four egg holders is formed of a ring or strip of iron just large enough so that an egg will slip through it; lap the ends and put on a binder to hold the joint tight.

Mark, cut off and bend the ends of two strips over ¹⁄₂ an inch, for the half ovals on which the egg rests and then bend the strips to fit the shape of the egg. This done, loop the ends of each half oval over the ring and press them down hard with your pliers to hold them in place. The way an egg holder is made is shown at A in Fig. 32.

Each leg is a short strip bent over and pressed on to the top of the ring. It is made rigid by putting a binder on it and to one of the half ovals as shown at B. To make the handle take a piece of lead wire and bend it to fit the outline shown at C; then straighten it out and cut off a strip of iron of the same length. Bend the ends of it over ¹⁄₂ an inch and shape it up with your round nose pliers.

Now join the four rings together with binders and loop and press the ends of the handle on to the rings that are furthest apart as shown at B. File, rub up and polish the egg boiler and give it to the chef with your compliments.

How to Make a Venetian Plate Holder.

—To make this plate holder you will have to add a hand drill, a ¹⁄₈ inch twist drill, and a center punch—which are described in Chapter III—to your list of tools.

The plate holder is of more simple construction than the egg boiler but as you have emerged from the kitchen into the dining room you will have to do a very fine job. It consists of four legs as shown in Fig. 33, riveted to a ring.

Draw the design on paper full size and this will depend on the diameter of the plate it is to hold. Find the length of the legs with your lead wire and measure and cut off the strips of iron accordingly. Likewise find the length of iron strips it will take for the ring and allow 1 inch or over for the lap joint.

Now drill ¹⁄₈ inch holes in each strip you intend to use for the legs, half way between the top and bottom of it and drill four holes in the ring at equi-distant points. Bend the strips into the artistic curves shown, using, of course, your round nose pliers to do it with, and bend the ring over a round form—a broomstick will do, but a larger form will work better.

Finally rivet the legs to the ring and see to it that you make a good job of it; slip the top of the legs into place over the plate and you will have a piece of Venetian iron work you can be proud of.

You can design and make pretty bent iron stands for vases in a manner very like that used for the plate holder; card racks, photograph frames, lamp shades, etc., can be made in the same manner; and as you become more adept at the work you can point and shape up the iron by heating it in an alcohol lamp, or a Bunsen burner and hammering it. When you can do this you will be able to make a sconce, that is, an ornamental mural[28] bracket for holding a candle as shown in Fig. 34.

Further you can twist and weave the iron strips for the sides and doors of boxes and book-cases and either line them with silk or put stained glass back of them. In fact the most beautiful things imaginable can be wrought from bent iron strips especially when rivets are used to put the work together.

A Dead Black Finish for Iron Work.

—Get 25 cents’ worth of japan gold size and 10 cents’ worth of pure drop black ground in turpentine and mix them together.

If it is too thick thin it with turpentine and put it on with a soft brush. When dry it will be dead black and neither air nor moisture will spoil it.

Doing Repoussé Work

Repoussé (pronounced re-poo′-say) is a French word and means to form in relief, and repoussage (pronounced re-poo′-sazh) is the word you want to use when you mean the process of producing designs in relief on sheet metal by hammering it on the back.

Tools Needed for Repoussé Work.

—Very few tools are needed for this kind of work but it is important to use the right kind.

The repoussé hammer is a jeweler’s hammer which has one end, or face of it flat and the other rounded like a peining hammer; it is shown in Fig. 35.

Then a number of blunt chisels and markers called repoussé tools as shown at B, Fig. 35, are needed to emboss the design in the sheet metal. These tools cost about 30 cents apiece and a set of eight or ten tools will serve you well. For the bolder parts of the work boxwood punches can be used but steel punches are always used for the finer work.

How to Prepare the Work.

—The kind of metal that is easiest to work is cold-rolled sheet copper[29] No. 32 Brown and Sharp gauge, but brass, aluminum and pewter can also be hammered.

To get the work ready fasten the piece of sheet metal to a wooden block with a cement made as follows: melt 1 pound of Burgundy pitch in an iron pan, or skillet, and stir in 1 pound of dental plaster of paris,[30] until they are thoroughly mixed. Then put in a tablespoonful each of tallow and of resin which will make the cement stick better.

Take a board 1 inch thick, 10 inches wide and 12 inches long and make a tray of it by nailing a strip of wood around it so that it is ¹⁄₂ an inch higher than the surface of the board. Pour the cement while it is still hot on the board and press the sheet of metal hard down on it; let it get cold when it will be firmly cemented to it.

Tracing the Design.

—After you have drawn the design on the sheet of metal either with a pencil or by means of transfer paper you can begin to trace the design by punching it with the straight and curved edge chisels.

To hold a chisel right, grip it between your thumb and index finger, let your next, or medius, finger lie gently on the shank of the tool and your third, or annularis, finger rest on the sheet of metal as shown at C in Fig. 35.

The handle of the hammer is long, thin and springy and you hold it by the end with your index finger laying on it as shown at A in Fig. 35. Do not strike the tool hard or the punch may go clear through the metal sheet but instead give it a succession of light, gentle taps at the rate of about 100 a minute or so and you will make the tracing nice and even.

Bossing the Work.

—After you have traced the outline of the design with the chisels hold the plate over an alcohol or a Bunsen flame and when it is hot enough you can take it off of the cement.

Then cement it to the block again, but this time put the other side down. Now use your boxwood or steel punches and hammer the copper, or other metal, into bold relief or you can matt the ground with any one of the numerous punches shown at B.

How to Make a Flat Candlestick.

—This is a good piece of work for you to start with because it is at once simple, artistic and more or less useful. To make it, cut out a sheet of brass 6¹⁄₂ inches square and draw a spider and his web and a poor little fly or two making a bee-line for it as shown at A in Fig. 36.

Punch the outline with your chisels and raise the bodies of the insects with your molding tools. The ground can be left flat or you can put it in with a marker. When you have the bossing done scallop the edges with your snips and bend them up so that it is 5 inches square.

For the handle cut a strip of brass ³⁄₄ inch wide and 4³⁄₄ inches long; raise the middle of it by hammering it in a groove cut in a block of hard wood; bend it and then rivet it to a corner of the brass sheet.

To make the ring which holds the candle cut out a strip of brass 1 inch high and 3 inches long and cut out three tongues as shown at B. Scribe a circle in a corner of the sheet of brass, cut three slots on it, slip the tongues through the slots and bend them over.

Rub the candlestick all over with some brass polish and then cover the bottom with a piece of green billiard cloth if you can get it, or any other kind you may have at hand. It is shown complete at C.

How to Make a Photo Frame.

—The front of this frame can be made of brass, copper or German silver and the back of it can be made of a sheet of tin or brass.

You can make the frame round, oblong or square and with a round or an oval opening in it to suit your fancy. Suppose you make the outside of it 7 × 9 inches and the oval opening 3¹⁄₂ × 5 inches as shown at A in Fig. 37. Draw or transfer the design to the surface of the metal and work it into shape as I have previously described.

Do not cut the opening or trim the metal sheet to the size you want them until after you have hammered it as this draws the metal out. After you have finished the front make a back for it of sheet tin or brass, 5 inches wide and 6 inches long, and bend over the edge of one end and both of the side edges ³⁄₈ inch as shown at B.

Solder the edges to the back of the frame and then solder a stay, or stand on the back of it. This completes the frame and the photograph can be slipped in it between the front and the back.

Cleaning and Polishing Brass, Copper and German Silver.

—To clean any of these metals mix some powdered rotten stone with some machine oil and rub them with a pad made of a soft flannel rag.

To polish wipe off the rotten stone and oil perfectly clean and then rub the work with a chamois skin dampened with alcohol and on which you have put some red rouge.

Frosting, Coloring and Lacquering Metals.

—You will find recipes for finishing articles in these styles in Chapter III.

Pierced Metal Work

This is by all odds the simplest and easiest of all art metal work and you won’t need any practice to make a good job; then the tools and materials cost but very little and the finished work is really pretty.

The Outfit to Do It With.

—The Tools.

—These are very few indeed and include (1) a pear-shaped mallet for stippling; (2) a tracing point; (3) a couple of modeling tools; (4) an awl with a tempered point, and (5) a metal folder, all of which are shown at A in Fig. 38.

You will also need (a) a sheet of designs; (b) a sheet of carbon, or impression paper; (c) a dozen or more split shanks to fasten the edges of the work together; (d) a drawing board about 12 × 18 inches on the sides of which the sheet metal is tacked while you are working it, and (e) some thumb tacks for tacking the work to the board.

You will need too, of course, the sheet metal and this can be of brass, copper or German silver and you can buy sheets of these metals that are already cut out for candle shades, lanterns, photo-frames and numerous other articles with the designs marked on them ready to use[31] or you can buy the sheet metal and the designs separately and then transfer and cut them out yourself.

An outfit for pierced brass work can be bought for as little as 60 cents and you can buy any number of brass or copper cutouts with the designs stamped on them for 25 cents each, or of German silver for 50 cents each.

How to Do the Work.

—The first thing to do is to lay the sheet of metal with the design on it on your drawing board and fasten it there with thumb tacks.

Now with your stippling awl punch little holes about ¹⁄₁₆ inch apart all along the outline of the design. The background is then stippled with the awl, that is, dotted all over but not punched through, and the closer the dots are the prettier it will look.

Use a small modeling tool to put the veins in the leaves and after you have done this use a larger modeling tool and shape up the leaves or whatever the design may be.

To do this grip the tool in your hand and press it hard on the edge of the leaf and force it in toward the vein and at the same time ease up on it. This is all there is to the actual work of piercing brass.

After you have made the design take some brass polish, put it on a little wad of cheese cloth and rub off the remaining marks and then polish it with a clean cloth.

Since the brass or other metal for pierced brass work is very thin you will have to back it up with thin wood, although candle shades and other small articles can be used as they are. A design for a candle shade is shown at B and the finished candlestick at C, while one for a toast panel that can be hung on the wall with a Venetian bent iron hanger which I described on page 76 is shown at D.

Casting and Working Pewter

Since nearly all metals excepting tin and lead have high melting points, it is hard to melt them unless you have a regular furnace.

Something About Pewter.

—But casting metals is a fascinating process and you can do it by melting 25 parts of lead and 75 parts of tin together which forms an alloy called pewter.

This alloy is as old as the hills and for ten or eleven centuries before the golden age of invention—that is to say the beginning of the 19th century—pewter utensils were used in nearly every home in every civilized country.

Then came the invention of cheap processes for making pottery and glass and those good old hard alloys known as britannia metal, which is formed of tin, copper and antimony, and German silver, which is German all right, for it was first made at Hildburghausen, Germany, but it is not silver at all for it is formed of nickel, zinc and copper, went entirely out of use.

But there is a dignity and a beauty about pewter that none of the other common metals have and it may be revived one of these days for efforts are now being made to produce it again in all its former glory.

How to Make Pewter.

—I do not know of any place where you can buy pewter but you can easily make the alloy yourself.

You can get the lead in your home town wherever you live at any plumbing shop but you may not be able to get the tin so easily. You can, however, get it by sending to the Conley Tin Foil Company, 521 West 25th Street, New York, and at the present time they are quoting pig tin in blocks at 75 cents a pound.

When you have the lead and the tin melt the lead in an iron ladle, see Fig. 39, over the kitchen fire and skim off the dross, that is, the impurities in it that come to the surface, and then put in the tin. After both are melted stir them well and then pour the alloy thus formed, which is pewter, in a pan that is oiled with sweet oil, to keep it from sticking and so make sheets of it of whatever thickness you want.

About Working Pewter.

—Pewter can be worked like any other malleable metal, only easier because it is softer and more ductile, hence it can be hammered into any shape.

It can be cast as you will presently see and it can be soldered by using a flux of tallow, Gallipoli oil or Venice turpentine and pewterer’s solder, which is made of 1 part of lead, 1 part of tin and 2 parts of bismuth.[32] This solder melts at 203 degrees Fahrenheit, that is at a temperature of 9 degrees less than that at which water boils.

How to Cast Pewter.

—The way in which pewter is usually cast is by making molds of iron and brass and pouring the metal into them. But you can do a very good job of casting pewter by making and using plaster of Paris molds.

In making any kind of castings you need a flask, that is a wooden frame made in halves, as shown in Fig. 40; the top half of the flask is called the cope and this must be fitted with pins that set in holes in the bottom of the frame or drag, as it is called.

When these pins set in the holes they keep the top and bottom parts of the flask together so that after the mold is made they can be taken apart and the pattern removed and then when they are put together again ready for the metal to be poured they will be exactly even. Make the top and bottom halves of the flask a couple of inches larger all round and a couple of inches deeper than the size of the pattern you are going to cast.

The Patterns Necessary.

—You can saw or turn or carve out of wood anything you want to cast in pewter, provided it is not too intricate, and after sandpapering it nice and smooth all over give it a couple of coats of shellac varnish.[33]

If it is your idea to make table-ware of pewter you can use ordinary china dishes for your patterns, provided they are without handles, but before making a mold with any kind of a pattern in plaster oil it well all over with sweet oil, using a brush for the purpose, so that it will not stick and then you can draw it easily.

Making the Mold.

—Lay the drag, that is the lower half of the flask, on a board or a table; mix dental plaster of Paris with water until it is about as thick as batter and fill the drag with it.

Just before the plaster begins to set, that is, harden, take your pattern, whether it is one you have made or a china dish, oil it and press it down into the plaster until it is nearly even with the top edge of the pattern and let it stay there until the plaster is hard, that is, over night.

Then brush sweet oil over the top of both the pattern and the hard plaster which must come about flush, that is even, with the top of the drag. Now put on the cope and fill it with plaster, smooth it off even with the top edge and let the plaster get hard.

Your next move is to lift the cope from the drag which you can do without trouble and then lift the pattern from the drag, using the point of a knife if it seems inclined to stick.

Drill a ¹⁄₄ inch hole through the plaster in the cope, fit the cope to the drag again and then pour in the pewter. When it is cold take the flask apart, take the casting out gently and don’t spoil it even if you have to break the mold.

Where cups, tankards or other hollow vessels are to be cast make a mold for it just as though it was a solid piece; now pour in the melted pewter and when it has cooled enough to form a solid layer turn the mold upside down and let the melted metal run out which will leave it hollow. If handles are needed cast them separately and solder them on to the body of the vessel. Some finished pewter ware is shown at C.

Finishing the Ware.

—Plates and the like can be scraped with a steel scraper and when they are nice and smooth rub them with a rag dipped in oil and whiting, but do not polish them.

If you have a turning lathe of any kind you can put your cups and other round objects in it and turn it up with a bent inside turning tool, a flat tool and a round point tool such as is used for turning brass, ivory, etc., and which you can buy for a quarter apiece,[34] and this will leave the pewter bright and beautiful.

Engraving on Metal

Engraving on metal is a beautiful art. The method is simple and the effect is striking but it requires a good deal of patience and long practice to do really good work.

The Tools That Are Used.

—Engraving tools, or gravers as they are called, are made in ten or a dozen shapes but the knife, round and lozenge gravers will be enough to do all ordinary work with. The different shapes are shown at A in Fig. 41.

All of the gravers are about the same length, that is 4¹⁄₂ or 5 inches, and they are fitted with knob shaped handles a third of which has been cut away as shown at B, so that the graver can be gripped in the palm of the hand with the flat side against it which keeps the tool in the right position. The way to hold a graver is shown at C.

How to Engrave on Metal.

—If the object to be engraved is very small it should be fixed to a block of wood with the Burgundy pitch compound above described, but if it is a large object it need not be mounted.

In either case an engraving pad, that is, a round, thick leather pad filled with sand, is a very great convenience to rest the work on because it permits the work to be easily turned in any direction and held at any angle while it is being engraved.

Rolled sheet copper is a good metal to practice on and you can trace the design you want to engrave on it by dabbing a thin film of engraver’s wax[35] on the metal surface with your finger and then sketching the outline with a bone stylus, that is a piece of bone having a sharp point. An example of art engraving is shown at D in Fig. 41.