Handicraft for boys

As you may have observed, it takes a pretty good sized room for a shop and quite a lot of tools to do carpenter work and cabinet making.

Now if you find it hard to get these things don’t be discouraged because there are other kinds of woodwork that take neither a whole room nor a chest of tools, and the chief ones of these are (1) scroll sawing; (2) wood turning; (3) wood carving and (4) pyrography.

Not only are the pursuits of these trades pleasant but they are profitable because whether the art objects you make are useful or not the work trains your mind, your eyes and your hands at one and the same time and when you get these three factors working harmoniously together you have achieved something that will be valuable to you as long as you live.

All About Scroll Sawing

Scroll sawing, fret sawing and jig sawing all mean precisely the same thing and that is sawing interlaced and ornamental designs out of wood, or fretwork as it is called.

With a scroll saw frame costing 50 cents and a few thin boards you can saw out the most exquisite patterns and make the most dainty articles imaginable. There is more pleasure, of course, in using a regular foot power scroll saw, but you can do just as good work with a hand frame and though it takes a little longer you’ll enjoy it immensely.

Scroll Sawing Outfits.

—A scroll saw is a very simple piece of apparatus and it consists of a fine saw fixed in a frame, or otherwise supported, so that it can be moved up and down, and it is narrow enough to turn sharp curves.

Now scroll saws, as I shall call them, are of three kinds and these are (1) those worked by hand; (2) those run by foot-power, and (3) those operated by other kinds of power.

A Cheap Scroll Sawing Outfit.

—The simplest and cheapest scroll sawing outfit consists of (a) a scroll saw frame; (b) a dozen saw blades, and (c) an awl, all of which are shown in Fig. 8. If it is your idea to saw out brackets and other fancy knickknacks you ought to have a sheet of (d) impression paper,[9] (e) some sheet designs,[10] and (f) some fancy wood.

The scroll saw frame is a bent iron or steel bar, usually nickel-plated, which forms a frame about 5 inches wide and 12 inches long. A handle is fitted to one end and a clamp to each end so that the saw blade can be held tight in the frame.

How to Use the Scroll Saw.

—The first thing to do is to put a saw blade in the frame and be sure to have the points of the teeth down, that is toward the handle.

Next mark the design you intend to saw out on a thin piece of wood[11] planed nice and smooth on both sides, hold it flat on the edge of the table with your left hand, grip the saw handle with your right hand and hold it so that the saw blade is vertical as shown in Fig. 9.

You are ready now to begin to saw out the design; set the sawblade on the line, jig the saw frame up and down and be careful to give it even and smooth strokes. You will be surprised to find how easily it works. When you are sawing turn the wood and not the saw frame—the latter can be turned a little sometimes to advantage—and hold it so that the back of the frame is always toward you and the blade should move forward but very slightly.

When you want to saw a piece out of the inside of the board, take your awl and make a hole in it by giving it a twisting motion to prevent it from splitting the wood. Now unscrew one of the clamps of your saw frame and put the free end of the saw through the hole, clamp it in the frame and start to saw again.

A Few Other Helpful Things.

—A Hand Saw-Table.—You can saw out your designs much more easily and neatly if you use a hand saw table as shown in Fig. 10. This is a board about 4 × 6 inches on the sides with a V sawed out of one end and a clamp screwed to the bottom of it.

This makes the end of the board project out from the table it is clamped to, raises the wood you are sawing from the surface of it and gives you a firm grip on it. You can easily make a saw table or you can buy one for 50 cents.[12]

Files for Scroll Work.

—To do a really neat job at scroll sawing you should have a set of scroll saw files. These files are long and thin and are made round, oval, knife edge, half round and three cornered as shown at A in Fig. 11.

A Twist Drill Stock.

—A twist drill stock and a drill, see B, Fig. 11, is far better for making holes in wood than an awl and as they only cost 50 cents you should have one. You can make a hole in a ¹⁄₈ inch thick board in the ¹⁄₁₀₀th part of a minute.

A Pair of Pliers.

—A pair of flat-nose, side cutting pliers is a very useful tool which will go a long way toward making your scroll sawing efforts a success. A pair is shown at C in Fig. 11.

A Small Hammer.

—And finally get a small hammer to drive brads with as pictured at D.

Scroll Saw Blades.

—There are two kinds made and these are known as (1) Star saw blades and (2) German saw blades.

As one is as good as the other by all means buy Star blades. The sizes from 1 to 10 are shown at E in Fig. 11, but three smaller and two larger sizes are made. The smaller sizes cost 10 cents a dozen and the larger sizes 15 cents a dozen. The spacing of the teeth on the blade is shown at F.

How to Trace a Design on Wood.

—You can draw your own designs or buy them printed ready to use. In either case you must transfer the design to the surface of the wood you are going to saw.

To do this lay a sheet of carbon paper as typists call it, or impression paper as jig sawyers call it, with the prepared side next to the wood; lay the design sheet on top of it; and fasten the corners of the sheets to the wood with glue, or, better, with thumb tacks.[13]

Now take a sharp, hard lead pencil or a piece of pointed bone and trace the outline of the design. When you have it all done you will find that the design is plainly marked in black lines on the wood—that is except where you forgot to trace it.

Designs for Scroll Sawing.

—Designs in great variety can be bought of H. L. Wild, Publisher, 171 Avenue A, New York City. Besides glove boxes, handkerchief boxes, bird cages, clock cases, thread and thimble stands, photo frames and a thousand and one other pretty and useful articles you can get patterns for doll furniture, alphabets and mechanical designs like the horizontal engine shown at A in Fig. 12 and the fire engine shown at B.

Foot-Power Scroll Saws.

—There are several makes of foot-power scroll saws on the market and the prices of these range from $4.50 to $25.

The Cricket Scroll Saw.

—This is the cheapest foot-power scroll saw that you can buy and is the one that sells for $4.50. It has a table that tilts which permits you to saw your work on a bevel—that is on a slant—so that you can inlay it with some other kind of wood or metal.

Fig. 12. mechanical masterpieces made with a scroll saw

This little machine weighs 17 pounds and is 33 inches high; it is made of lighter castings than the machines which follow but it will do just about as good work as the higher priced ones. Fig. 13 shows what it looks like.

The Lester Scroll Saw.

—This is a well made saw, has a cast iron frame and the arms of the saw frame and the pitman—that is, the rod which connects the crank wheel with the frame—are of ash.

The Lester has several very handy attachments and these are (a) an automatic dust blower, which blows the sawdust away from the line you are sawing on; (b) an adjustable lever saw clamp with a hinged jaw which prevents the saw blades from breaking; and (c) a drilling attachment.

This saw, which is shown in Fig. 14, costs $10.00, is 35 inches high and weighs in the neighborhood of 30 pounds. The lathe attachment costs $2.00 extra.

The Fleetwood Scroll Saw.

—This is the best and consequently the most expensive foot power scroll saw made. It has a swing of nearly 16 inches. It is fitted with a tilting table, a vertical drill and a blowing attachment. A scroll saw of this kind with a plain stand can be bought for $21.00, or one with a fancy stand, see Fig. 15, can be had for $25.00.

How a Foot-Power Scroll Saw Works.

—If you will look again at Figs. 13 and 14 you will see that the scroll saws shown have saw frames very like a hand saw frame. The lower part of the frame is connected with a crank on the end of a spindle, which has a small grooved wheel fixed to it, by a pitman or rod and the treadle is connected with the large drive wheel by another pitman; finally the drive wheel is belted to the small grooved wheel.

Now when you work the treadle with your foot it produces a reciprocating motion and this is changed by the pitman into rotary motion which it imparts to the drive wheel. Since the grooved, or driven, wheel is smaller than the drive wheel it revolves faster and this gives the pitman connected with it a very rapid rotary motion on one end but as it is pivoted to the frame which in turn is pivoted at the rear end it is changed into an up and down or reciprocating motion exactly like the treadle but many times faster.

The Fleetwood works a little differently, in that instead of a frame the pitman is connected with a metal block that slides in a guide. The lower end of the saw is fastened to the upper end of this sliding block and the top of the saw blade is fixed to the end of a long, curved spring whose elasticity tends to make it fly up.

This action keeps the saw blade always taut and pulls it up except when the pitman pulls the block down and the saw with it. This is the principle on which large power jig saws used in shops are worked.

How to Saw on a Foot-Power Scroll Saw.

—Lay the board you are going to saw flat on the table of the machine and put your finger tips of both hands on top of the board; when possible keep one hand on one side of the saw and the other hand on the opposite side of it.

Press down hard enough on the work to keep it on the table against the up strokes of the saw; as the top of the table is polished it is easy to slide the work around and keep the saw on the line. Run the saw at an even speed and do not feed the wood against the blade too fast.

TABLE OF SCROLL SAW WOODS

These woods can be bought of H. L. Wild, 171 Avenue A, New York City, or of J. Gabriel and Company, 672 Grand Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Fancy Woods for Scroll Saw Work.

—Fancy woods that are planed on both sides for scroll sawing can be bought in thicknesses of ¹⁄₁₆, ¹⁄₈, ³⁄₁₆ and ¹⁄₄ inch. Wood that is ¹⁄₈ inch thick is the best to use for all ordinary work.

The foregoing list gives the name, thickness and price of the chief common and fancy woods that are good for scroll sawing.

Trimmings for Boxes, Etc.

—Brass hinges, knobs, screws, drawer pulls, box hooks, French screws and wire nails, that is brads, catches, metal legs, small locks, escutcheons, turned moldings, etc., can be bought of the above dealers who specialize in scroll sawyer’s materials.

Turning in Wood

And now we come to another and highly fascinating kind of wood-work and this is to spin a stick of wood in a lathe and shape it with a chisel or gouge, or wood turning as it is called.

While the outfit you need to turn wood with costs more than for scroll sawing you will never forget the pleasure of rounding up of a bit of wood into a shapely form, no, not if you were to live a thousand years.

Get a Lathe First.

—It is far better to buy a lathe than to try to make one, that is if you expect to turn anything on it, for in the first place it is hard to get the things to make one with and in the second you can buy one for very little money.

How a Lathe is Made.

—A wood turning lathe consists of four principal parts, and these are (1) the headstock; (2) the rest; (3) the tailstock; (4) the bed and (5) the stand, the first three parts of which are shown in Fig. 16.

The head stock is fixed to the bed of the stand; it is formed of a cone pulley mounted on a spindle in a frame. A spur center is screwed to the spindle and this holds the wood tightly in place while it is being turned. The rest, which is adjustable, is used to lay your turning tool on and so keep it in position. A long and short rest usually go with the better lathes.

The tailstock has two adjustments, the first of which allows it to be slipped back and forth on the bed and clamped at any point which gives a rough adjustment, and the second is a spindle which is threaded on one end and has a taper center, that is a sharp point on the other end. This allows the piece of wood which is to be turned to be set between the spur center of the headstock and the taper center of the tailstock.

These parts rest on the bed of the lathe and this in turn is mounted on a stand. The stand is fitted with a drive wheel and this is driven by a treadle with which it is connected by a pitman exactly like a foot-power scroll saw.

The Cheapest Lathe You Can Buy.

—The cheapest lathe you buy is called the Companion; it is made by the Millers Falls Company, Millers Falls, N. Y., and it costs $10.50. It has a long and a short rest, three turning tools and a 2 inch face plate and spur center. When you get it uncrate it, set it up, oil it well and you are ready to do some turning. The lathe is shown complete in Fig. 17.

Attachments for the Companion Lathe.

—This lathe is fitted with a 4 inch emery wheel without extra charge. A very useful attachment is a circular saw 3 inches in diameter and a saw table 6 × 7 inches with a straight edge guide; it costs $1.25 extra. A scroll saw attachment that can be clamped on the lathe bed may be bought for $3.00 extra. Both of these attachments are shown in Fig. 17. Of course better and larger lathes can be had for more money.

Turning Tools for Wood.

—The tools used for turning wood[14] are simply chisels and gouges. The chisels are made with four kinds of points, namely, (1) skew point; (2) round point; (3) square point, and (4) spear point, and these are shown in Fig. 18. These chisels can be bought in all sizes from ¹⁄₄ inch to 1 inch wide.

Gouges also come in sizes from ¹⁄₄ inch up to 1 inch, and a parting tool, which is used to cut off a turned piece and which is simply a V shaped chisel, can be had in ¹⁄₂, ⁵⁄₈ and ³⁄₄ inch sizes. These turning tools are also shown in Fig. 18. You can buy them fitted with applewood handles and sharpened ready for use for about 50 cents apiece. You can buy them of hardware dealers or of Hammacher, Schlemmer and Co., Fourth Ave. and 13th Street, New York.

How to Turn Wood.

—Before you can turn out a really good job on a lathe you must practice awhile. A good thing to try your hand on is to make some tool handles. The size of these will, of course, depend on what you intend to use them for.

Take a stick of wood, round or square, it doesn’t in the least matter, a couple of inches longer and a trifle larger than the largest diameter that the handle is to be and drive one end against the spurs of the face plate as shown in Fig. 19.

This done screw up the feed of the tailstock until the back-center is forced into the end of the wood about ¹⁄₈ of an inch; clamp the rest so that it comes to within ¹⁄₄ an inch of the wood you are going to turn and you are ready for work.

Now put your foot on the treadle and work it up and down; very soon the speed of the drive wheel will carry it round smoothly and it will deliver considerable power to the pulley of the headstock. If the drive wheel is 5 times as large as the pulley and you treadle the drive wheel 100 times every minute, the stick of wood which you want to turn will revolve 500 times a minute.

When you have the wood rotating at about this speed grip the handle of it firmly with your right hand, lay the back of the chisel on the rest and press down on the blade with your left hand as shown in Fig. 20. Of course the top edge of the wood is turning toward you.

Whatever you do when you are roughing down a stick of wood don’t try to take off too large a cut. Go at it very gently with the point of your chisel and as it begins to cut you can swing the tool around so that the whole width of the blade is cutting.

Gouges are used in the same way as chisels and with them you can turn out hollow parts. A parting tool is used for cutting off the ends of the wood after you have finished turning it.

When you want to turn a piece of wood down to a given size you can do so by testing it with a pair of calipers, as shown in Fig. 21, or you can size it with a regular sizing tool. To size the work measure off the distance between the points of the calipers with a rule for whatever thickness you want the turned part; then as you turn the wood you can try it from time to time until the wood will just slip through between the points.

The Art of Wood Carving

Carving is by all odds the hardest of all woodworking processes to learn and yet there are some simple forms of it that are at once easy to do and pretty to look at. While carving is an art in itself it can be used with fine effect in combination with some kinds of scroll sawed and turned work.

Your Set of Carving Tools.

—To begin with you can get along very well with a set of six carving tools. A set of this number is made up of a ³⁄₈ inch, a ¹⁄₄ inch, a ¹⁄₂ inch and a ⁵⁄₁₆ inch straight shank carving tools and two of these are chisels and four are gouges, so you see that they are just about the same as carpenters’ and turners’ chisels and gouges. Such a set of tools costs about $3.00.

A better set contains a dozen carving tools and this includes the above tools as well as a couple of bent fluting gouges, with ¹⁄₈ and ¹⁄₄ inch sweeps, a couple of front bent tools, a straight parting tool, and a veining tool, all of which is shown at A in Fig. 22; the sweeps, as the curved cutting edges are called, are shown at B.

The tangs of these tools, that is the sharp ends which fit into the handles, have shoulders on them to prevent the handles from creeping and splitting. The best carving tools on the market are those made by S. J. Addis of London, and you can’t go wrong if you buy them.

Carving tools as they come from the makers are sharpened but not honed, that is the tools are ground sharp, but the inside bevel of the tools must be rubbed up with an oil stone slip and most wood carvers like to do this themselves.

When you buy a set of carving tools you also want to get a carver’s mallet made of lignum-vitæ[15] with a face 2¹⁄₂ inches in diameter and, as you will see in Fig. 22, its shape is quite different from the ordinary kinds. Also get a Washita oil stone, and an Arkansas carving tool slip, which is a small wedge-shaped oil-stone.

Two or more markers, which are stamps made of tool steel, are very useful for stamping in background work. A number of different designs are shown in Fig. 23 and they cost about a quarter apiece.

To hold the work while you are carving it you can make two or more snibs as shown at A in Fig. 24. These little clamps are sawed out pieces of wood with an ordinary wood screw through the thick end, and when you want to carve a flat piece of work clip it with a couple of snibs and screw the latter to your bench. A better scheme is to use a couple of hand screws as shown at B. For carving in relief you will need a wood-carver’s vise as shown at C.

The Best Woods for Carving.

—A wood that is suitable for carving must be tough, even grained and free from knots. For a beginner, and I guess you are one, yellow pine is a good wood to practice on as it is soft and easy to work but you must be careful not to splinter it along the grain.

Oak is much tougher but it is a fine wood for carving and you will not need to take the care to prevent splintering as with pine. Black walnut and mahogany are beautiful woods and are nice to carve, while for finer work apple, pear, sycamore and California redwood are largely used.

Kinds of Wood Carving.

—There are three kinds of wood carving in general and these are (1) chip, or surface carving, (2) panel or relief carving, and (3) figure carving, as shown in Fig. 25.

When you cut your initials in the top of your desk at school you made a primitive attempt at what is called chip carving. Most likely you got the birch for it but it was only the savage instinct for decorative art that was trying to find expression in you, and so it’s not your fault. (But don’t do it again.) Any kind of carving on a flat surface is called chip carving, and some of it is very beautiful. It is shown at A.

Panel carving is done on flat pieces of wood also but the design is made by cutting out or sinking the ground, as shown at B. Sometimes when it is desirable to make some part stand out in relief above the surface it is carved out of a separate piece of wood and planted on, that is glued on.

To carve a lily of the valley or a deer’s head out of a solid block of wood is not as easy as the other kinds of carving, but if you have a natural aptitude for using tools and an eye for art you can succeed as well as the next one.

Chip Carving.

—You will need only three tools for chip carving and these are (1) a ¹⁄₄ inch chisel; (2) a parting tool and (3) a veining tool.

The first thing is to get the design you want to carve on the board. To do this you can either draw the design directly on the board, or, better, lay a sheet of impression paper on the board and then the design you want to transfer on top of it and trace it with a lead pencil.

Screw the board to your bench with two or more snibs and you are ready for work. Carve out the heavier lines with the parting tool and the lighter lines with the veining tool. Use the chisel to cut the corners sharp and make the lines clean and even. In chip carving grounds are never put in.

Panel Carving.

—In this kind of carving leaves, berries, scrolls and the like are carved out of the surface of the board and as the ground is sunk these objects stand out in relief.

Begin by drawing, or transferring, the pattern to the board as before; then cut it out with gouges and chisels as shown at A and finally use the veining tool for the radiating lines. The head can be carved out of a separate piece of wood glued to the ground, or planted on as it is called. The work can be oiled and polished but never varnish it. It is shown finished at C.

To make a watch case holder like the one shown at D saw out a piece of walnut, or other wood, ¹⁄₄ inch thick and draw on the design.

Carve the cross and lower part of the case by chipping it; carve the leaves in relief and put in the veins with the veining tool. Now saw out another piece for the pocket 1 inch thick and carve out the front and the back to the shape shown at D so that it is only ¹⁄₈ inch thick when finished and glue it to the other part when you will have a watch case holder of the vintage of 1875.

Carving in Solid Wood.

—This ranges all the way from carving simple leaves as shown at D to the human form divine.

To carve out leaves on a flat surface draw the design as before and carve them out with your gouge to look as much like real leaves as you can and to give them the final touch of beauty cut the veins in with your veining tool.

For carving out heads, as for example the one shown at C, mark the shape of the object which you intend to carve on the sides of the block as it would look if you cut it down through the middle. Now screw up the block in your vise and cut away the sides with your chisels and gouges, using the mallet to do it with. All you want to do at first is to get the rough shape of the figure.

When you have done this you can go ahead and finish up the work with your chisels and gouges. To give the carving a life-like appearance do not use files or sandpaper on it and do not varnish or polish it.

Pyrography, or Wood Burning

This is a simple and pleasing art and one that is easy to practice. It gets its didactic name from the Greek word pyro, which means fire, and graph, to write, that is writing with fire, only in pyrography you draw with fire instead.

The Necessary Tools.

—The chief tool you need is called an etching tool. This is formed of a piece of iron, copper or platinum with a curved point which is heated in a flame until it is red or white hot. When it is hot you press the curved point against the wood upon which you have drawn the design and it burns the lines into it.