Now get half a dozen half-inch round-headed dresser-hooks, and put the apparatus together in the way shown in the diagram, where B and C are the points at which your sticks are hinged. Slip one of the legs over the block F, and screw it down so that it will move freely but firmly with a leather washer. Place the leg (C D) under F B, and screw it into position from the upper surface with one of the dresser-hooks. Place the leg (C E) over A B, and screw that into place with another hook, also from above. The third hook is beneath the apparatus just close to B, the fourth beneath just close to A, and the fifth and sixth are used to screw the block on to the drawing-board, and are put in on the bevel, so that their heads will not project above the surface of the block. The tracer is screwed point downwards at C, the pencil is at A; and pencil-tracer, block, and hooks at A and B are all of equal length, so that the machine moves smoothly and evenly over the flat surface of your drawing-board.
Now place a map beneath the tracer, and a plain sheet of paper beneath the pencil. Hold the tracer with the right hand, the pencil with the left, and carefully guide the tracer over the outline of your map. Let the pencil move about as it pleases, and you will find that whatever the tracer does the pencil will mimic. The pencil will gradually draw a copy of the map, but it will move twice as fast as the tracer, and make its copy twice the size of the original. This is the result of the way we have at present arranged our pantagraph. The principle is that the copy compared with the original is always in the same proportion as the distance from the block to the pencil bears to that from the block to the tracer. Here the distance in a straight line from F to A is double that from F to C, hence the copy is double the size. The position of the tracer between the pencil and the block depends on the points in the sticks at which they are screwed together, and these you can vary to suit any scale you desire, remembering always that your figure (C G B H) must have its opposite sides equal—that is to say, C H must always equal G B, and C G must always equal B H.
To enlarge your map, the distance from F to C must be less than from F to A; to reduce your map the distance must somehow be greater. Hence you have only to transpose your pencil and tracer, putting the pencil at C and the tracer at A. To reverse the map, and keep it of the same size, put the block at C and the tracer at F. In short, by shifting about the pencil, block, and tracer in the different holes you will soon understand the curious properties of your new copying-machine. One thing do not forget, and that is that when you shift your pencil the hook which is put close by to steady its pressure on the paper should be moved with it.
The pantagraph, or pantograph, was invented by Christopher Scheiner two hundred and eighty years ago; and, carefully made of brass, is in many forms now used in architects’ and other offices where much drawing and copying are done. If not made quite truly its lines may be shaky, but it will be found invaluable for the accurate placing of points, to which lines can be afterwards filled in.
The pattern we have given is easy to make. The instrument may be of different dimensions and of different materials. It may be fitted together in a different manner, but it must have its central figure with the opposite sides equal.
Our mathematical friends will soon be able to demonstrate the reason of its action, and it may be no little satisfaction to the bulk of our readers to find that there is some practical use in old Euclid after all!
There are many forms of flagstaffs, and many ways of erecting and rigging them. They are sometimes made of iron, and are not unfrequently rigged with wire or with wire rope. Some are fitted with topmasts, yards, and gaffs, others simply consist of the one pole.
The flagstaff we are going to describe is not one that will run our readers into any unnecessary expense. It can be erected, fitted, and rigged by any ordinary boy of average ability, at a small expense, although of course the more money that is laid out upon it the better it should look when erected.
We shall give the description, however, of the very cheapest that can be made consistently with safety. To commence with, the staff itself can be obtained from any builder by purchasing a small scaffold pole, which will cost—according to your skill in bargaining—from one penny to three halfpence a foot. This can either be planed and varnished; or, if our reader is not much of a carpenter, it may be painted white with paint obtained already mixed from the nearest oilshop at about sixpence a pound.
The height we must leave to the taste of the reader, but the following scale will be found convenient, and will look very well. Let the pole be 46 feet in length. Then a hole will have to be dug in the ground 6 feet in depth to receive that amount of the staff. But before it is erected it must be rigged and have the ‘knees’ screwed or nailed upon it. A big flagstaff would have ‘crosstrees’ like the topmast of a ship, but it will be more easy and will look less clumsy simply to fix it with knees. These are pieces of wood which will be described afterwards, and which have to be fixed about 30 feet from the ground.
The next thing to arrange is the rigging. For that we shall require three shrouds on each side and one stay in front, besides signal halliards to hoist and lower the flag. Two-inch rope will do very well for the shrouds, but 21⁄2-inch would perhaps be a little safer. Rope is sold by weight, and 2-inch rope may be purchased at sixpence a pound, a pound of 2-inch rope equalling one fathom, which is 6 feet. The easiest way of measuring in order to ascertain what length of rope you will require is as follows. Having obtained your staff, lay it upon the ground. Then measure off the 6 feet that has to go in the ground and mark it with a piece of chalk. Now measure the 30 feet and mark the staff where the knees will be placed. Now measure a straight line at right angles to the lower chalk mark, where the staff, when erected, will be flush with the ground.
Fig. 1.
a, Six feet for insertion in ground. b, Thirty feet between ground and the knees. c, Ten feet above the knees. d, Chalk mark for knees. e, Chalk mark for insertion in ground. f, Chalk mark on ground ten feet from staff. g, Straight line. h, Length of one shroud or of the stay.
A good distance is about one-third the height of the staff from the ground to the knees, so we will say 10 feet, and mark the ground. Then stretch a piece of string from the upper mark to the mark on the ground, allowing also the circumference of the staff, that will give you the length of one shroud (Fig. 1).
Now you must measure for the ratlines.
Having obtained your rope, the next operation is to cut it into proper lengths. First of all make both ends fast, and stretch it as much as you can. Then measure with the line you used to obtain the length, and cut off two shrouds separately, and the stay. Then cut the remaining rope in half, so as to make two pairs of shrouds. The stay is generally of thicker and stronger rope than the shrouds, but with the staff 6 feet in the ground there is no necessity for this.
Fig 2
A, Pair of shrouds. a, The collar to go over the staff. b, The seizing. B, The single shrouds. a, The cut splice. C, The stay. a, The eye-splice.
Now comes the fitting of the rigging. With the two single shrouds you must make a cut-splice, making the splice sufficiently large to fit nicely over the staff. Then double the two pairs and seize them together separately, A, Fig. 2, leaving sufficient room to pass over the staff without chafing.
The stay you must fit with an eye-splice; and make the eye large enough, or it will look lubberly. (Fig. 2)
The eye and collars should be wormed, parcelled, and served, but this is not absolutely necessary, and might look clumsy if done by an amateur. Now screw on the knees; they are triangular pieces of wood to support the rigging and prevent it slipping down the staff. Two bolters, or rounded pieces of wood, will answer the purpose equally well, but they must be firmly attached to the staff. Now put on the rigging—first of all one pair of shrouds, next the other pair, then the single shrouds with the cut splice, and lastly the stay.
The truck must now be placed on the top of the staff. If one is purchased a sheave will be found in it for the signal halliards to reeve through, and these had better be rove at once.
Fig 3
A, Iron spike. B, Cleats, a, wooden. b, iron.
If the reader’s taste runs in such a direction, a vane to show the direction of the wind can be placed on the truck—such as an arrow, a cock, or any of the numerous articles that are sold for the purpose. A cleat (Fig. 3) should be screwed to the side of the staff just within easy reach of the arm, say between 3 and 4 feet from the ground, in order to belay or make fast the halliards.
Now fix the staff in the ground, and see that the earth, etc., is well beaten in round it. The next proceeding is to set up the rigging. This may be done with deadeyes or with thimbles; the latter is certainly the neater way of doing it. Setting up with deadeyes need not be described here. The following is the method of doing it with thimbles.
Splice the end of each rope round a thimble, which is done as follows. Open out the rope to the length of twice and a half the round of the rope. Then measure the round of the thimble and the round of the rope, and put the marlin spike in there and commence splicing as though for an eyepiece. Now you will require for each rope an iron spike about 3 feet in length with an eye in it. These must be driven into the ground at regular intervals in a straight line, three on each side of the staff, 10 feet distant, and one for the stay in front. Then obtain some stout seizing stuff, such as cod-line, and splice it into the eye of the spike; then pass it through the thimble and then through the eye again, and so on, pulling it as tight as you can every time. At sea the necessary strength for getting the rigging as tight as possible is obtained with a tackle.
Fig 4
a a a, Shrouds. b, Stay.
Now your staff ought to look like Fig. 4, and you can commence ratling it down, for which half-inch rope ought to be used.
For this, get a wooden tooth-powder box, plain—that is, without projecting rims—take off the lid, and smooth it all over. Next make the compass-card. Cut this circular, about a quarter of an inch smaller than the inside of the box, which should be about two inches and three-quarters in diameter outside. Mark the centre of the card, and mark from this centre the thirty-two points of the compass (as Fig. 1). Now make the needle. This must be hard steel; you can get this at the tinman’s or ironmonger’s. Get him to cut it about two inches long and three-eighths of an inch wide in the middle, tapering to a point at each end. The steel should be about a sixteenth of an inch thick. Get him to drill a hole through the middle of this steel about an eighth of an inch in diameter. Get a small piece of brass wire a quarter of an inch in diameter and a quarter of an inch long. File a shoulder to this (as Fig. 2) about a sixteenth of an inch wide and an eighth of an inch from the end. Drill a hole triangular in section an eighth of an inch deep and about an eighth of an inch at the outside. Place this through the compass-card. Now magnetize your needle. This is done as follows.
Fig. 1.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3.
Get a magnet—most boys have one—and draw one end of it from end to end of the needle, always going the same way and never back again. Do this about twenty times and your steel needle will be a permanent magnet. Now place this underneath the compass-card and push the little brass button through the hole in it. Suspend this by placing a point in the hole in the brass stud, and one end of the needle will point towards the north. Mark this point, and turn the card on the stud till that end of the needle points to eighteen and a half degrees west of the north point on the card. Now fasten the brass in the needle by two or three taps with a hammer on the under side of the brass, being careful not to strike the steel. Next fix it more securely with a dot of sealing-wax on each point and card. Now suspend it again on the point, and the north point will dip towards the earth. You must balance the card by putting dots of sealing-wax here and there till it swings quite level.
Next, in the centre of the bottom of your box fix a steel pin about half an inch high, brought to a point that will go loosely in the dent in the brass stud. Put your card on this point and it will swing easily in the box. Line the box with a strip of cardboard a little wider than the height of the top of the brass stud from the bottom of the box. Get a circular glass the size of the inside of the box (your glazier will cut this for you for a few pence). Put it on the shelf formed by the cardboard, which should be glued into the box, and fasten it in its place with a narrow strip of cardboard glued in all round the box.
By putting the glass in you can turn the box about any way in your pocket without the card coming off the peg.
Now to make the timepiece. Make a dial plate of paper the size of the top of the lid. You can first draw this on a sheet of paper, and then placing one leg of a pair of compasses on a point in the twelve-o’clock line—which must in this case be only one line, about half an inch from the six-o’clock line—mark a circle the exact size of the top of the lid. Inside this circle make another about a quarter of an inch from it, and mark the hours inside this circle. Paste this paper on the top of the lid, and put the lid on the box. Now draw a line from the twelve-o’clock line on the lid right down the side of the box; make this line quite perpendicular to the top and bottom. Now make the gnomon. Get a piece of very thin sheet brass or tin-plate about the thickness of a card and cut the gnomon out of it. The shape and size can be got from directions already given. Now with a thin, fine saw, cut the twelve-o’clock line into a slot about a sixteenth of an inch deep and going beyond the six-o’clock line a little, about an eighth of an inch. This slot must be the same depth in the six-o’clock end as at the edge of the lid. You can push the base of the gnomon into this slot, so that the axis edge exactly crosses the six-o’clock line.
To use the compass, take off the lid, place the box level, and note where the north points, and you can determine any point of the compass from that. To use the timepiece, set the box level, and bring the mark in the side of the box to correspond exactly with the north point of the card. Put the gnomon in the slot in the lid, and put the lid on the box without disturbing it, so that the mark in the side of the lid corresponds exactly with the mark in the side of the box, and the shadow of the axis of the gnomon will point out the hour. When you have seen the time, take off the lid, take the gnomon out of the slot, and put it inside the box, laying on the glass, and put the lid on. You can thus carry the whole in your pocket without a fear of it getting out of order; and when you are out for a walk, and the sun shines, you can always tell your way home and the time to go there.
Fig. 4.
Walking-sticks of all varieties—apple, ash, blackthorn, brier, cherry, elm, hazel, holly, oak, vine, and whitethorn—are best when cut in the winter, between November and February; the sap is then sluggish, the leaves are off, and the character of the stick can be most easily descried.
To boys who desire to carry a stick of their own choice and dressing, the following practical notes will be of value.
Never attempt to trim a stick as soon as you have cut it. Leave the branches on it an inch or two long, and hang the stick up to dry for a week or so, knob end uppermost with a weight on the narrow end. Let it hang in a moderately cool place, and when it is dry and pliable, take it down and begin to trim it. Cut off the branches you do not want, and make the crook if you do not care to finish merely with a knob. To make the crook, plunge the end for a quarter of an hour in boiling water, bend it to shape, and keep it in place by a piece of string twisted by a stick in the middle, like the spring of a jumping frog, or the stretcher of a ribbon saw. When the stick has dried in shape, trim it to taste with a sharp knife, and give it a good rub down with sand-paper. When it is smooth and presentable, if you want it to remain its natural colour, give it a coat of boiled linseed-oil, and let this dry thoroughly into it. If you want the stick to be black, boil a pound of logwood chips for an hour in a quart of water, and brush the stick over with the boiling liquor. When the stick is dry, give it another boiling coat of the decoction. When that is dry, dissolve an ounce of green copperas in a quart of hot water and coat the stick with the solution. Keep the stick away from the fire, and let it dry each time slowly and well, and you will find that the mixture of the copperas and the logwood has dyed it an intense black. After you have stained it, give it a coat of boiled oil, and when that is thoroughly dry, begin to polish it.
For the polish, mix an ounce and a half of shellac with a quarter of an ounce of gum mastic, and dissolve them slowly in half a pint of methylated spirits, or, what is better, quicker, and cheaper, buy threepenny worth of French polish from the nearest oil-shop.
Having polished the stick, finish it with a coat of hard varnish or copal varnish such as the artists use, of which a little goes a long way. Hard varnish can be bought cheaply. If you must make it, mix together an ounce of gum mastic, two ounces of gum juniper, a quarter of an ounce of turpentine, and a pint of methylated spirits. Give the stick one or two even coats of varnish, and you will find it last for many months. Some sticks do very well varnished over the oil and stain, then the polish is saved. If you want to stain a stick brown, add dragon’s blood to the polish; if you like it golden coloured, drop in some yellow ochre or gamboge. The difficulty in stick-making, however, is not in the polishing; it is in the bending and trimming.
Apple makes excellent sticks if judiciously dried. Ash sticks are best cut from saplings; when cut from hedges or pollards, they are inclined to become brittle. Like apple sticks, they require careful seasoning to be serviceable. Blackthorn sticks are heavy, and liable to splinter. They are best when cut from saplings. Brier sticks are also best when cut from saplings. Cherry sticks should be stripped of only a part of their bark, and require sand-papering, oiling, polishing, and varnishing. Elm sticks should have the rough bark left on; they also are best when taken from saplings, but it is very seldom indeed that an elm stick is fit for anything else than to be looked at. Hazel sticks are light and handsome, and do good service, no matter whence they are cut. They should be well rubbed down with sandpaper and carefully varnished. Holly sticks are as good as any. Cut them from the branch with the crook or knob attached, and let them have a long time to dry. Oak sticks are the strongest and toughest, but the most difficult to dry and trim. If you dry them too rapidly they split, if you dry them with the bark off they split, if you have the knots close together they split. If you get a good oak cudgel you can smash any stick of any other wood not exceeding it in size. Vine sticks are also of value, but they have an unpleasant tendency to warp and twist. Whitethorn sticks are like unto blackthorn sticks—heavy, treacherous, and brittle.
If you want to bark a stick, steep it in hot water, and rub off the coat with a piece of sacking. If you want to bend or straighten a stick, cover it with hot wet sand, and get it into shape while it is hot.
Of canes we need make no mention, nor need we deal with the birch. They are but luxuries, frequently doomed to be misunderstood. Their days are over. Alas, poor cane! Alas, poor birch!
Nothing has been said so far about carving its handle, and as a stick of our own cutting and carving has a certain charm about it, and in its making affords an agreeable exercise for a wet day, we herewith give a couple of designs which can easily be improved upon, and which are grotesque enough to look well even as failures; and this to a beginner is a quality not to be despised. We may as well, however, adopt the usual plan of descending from generals to particulars, and find space for a few notes on stick history.
When Œdipus solved the riddle of the Sphinx, he thought of a walking-stick—as many others of the puzzled have done. ‘There’s a being,’ said the riddler, ‘which has four feet, and three feet, with only one voice; but its feet vary, and when it has the most it is the weakest.’ ‘That,’ said Œdipus, ‘must be man, who, when he is a child, crawls on his hands and knees; when he is a man walks uprightly; and when he is old totters with a walking-stick!’
On the origin and development of the walking-stick a goodly volume might be written. Perhaps the most interesting form the stick took was that of the pilgrim’s staff. This staff was about four feet long, armed at the lower end with a spike, and fitted about a foot from its top with a knob for the hand to rest upon. The lower part was solid, the upper part was hollow, and was used for relics of saints, or a musical instrument, or something to eat, according to the taste of the owner. It was in a pilgrim’s staff that saffron was secretly brought from Greece to Saffron Walden, and it was in a similar way that silkworms found their way to Europe. This idea of using a stick as a carrier has been utilised in our own days, not only for telescopes, match-boxes, swords, and guns, but also for surgeons’ instruments.
Another striking form was that of the ferula, which derives its name from the giant fennel, of whose stalk it generally consisted. The tough lightness of the fennel wood rendered it particularly suited for the support of the aged, and hence it gradually became the prototype of those lighter wands which have continued amongst us as a sign of office or seniority; and at the same time it retained its popularity with the chastisers of erratic youth. In the East the ferula was replaced by the reed; but in Egypt the reed gave place to slender sticks of cherry wood, some of which had a carved handle. This carving of the head is, however, peculiar to no country and no age. It is a practice indulged in by all men, savage and civilised.
In our own Tudor period the walking-stick began to flourish much. Then for the first time do we get it elaborately carved and adorned with precious metals. In the inventory of the old palace at Greenwich, there is entered, “A cane garnished with sylver and gilte, with astronomie upon it. A cane garnished with golde, having a perfume on the toppe; under that a diall with a pair of twitchers and a pair of compasses of golde; and a foot rule of golde, a knife and a file of golde, with a whetstone tipped with golde.” A somewhat elaborate battery to carry in a walking stick! In the seventeenth century sticks became even more ornamental, and in the eighteenth they began to be made entirely of agate, or clouded marble, or ivory. How these were used and abused can be learnt from No. 103 of the Tattler, where Isaac Bickerstaffe issues licences regarding them, and is appealed to by petitioners, one of whom asks for permission to retain his cane on account of its having become as indispensable to him as any of his other limbs. “The knocking of it upon his shoe, leaning one leg upon it, or whistling upon it with his mouth, are such great reliefs to him in conversation, that he does not know how he should be good company without it.” Later on this fashion of elaborate walking sticks was adopted by the old ladies, and it was quite common to see the dames out walking with wood, ivory, whalebone, or green glass sticks, five or six feet in length, having the ends bent over like a shepherd’s crook, and twisted back again towards the ground.
In these days, now that the means of communication have been so much improved and the world become one huge country, foreign sticks have lost much of their rarity. They come to us in tons, and a stick importer’s warehouse is a sight to see. The goods in the rough do not look inviting; in fact, anything more resembling a lot of firewood it would be difficult to imagine. Those who have not the chance of seeing the interior of one of these stores, can obtain a very good notion of what they are like by inspecting a shop window next door to the Autotype Gallery in what used to be New Oxford Street. There can be seen canes of all sorts, rough and rooty, from the eastern and western tropics—rajahs from Borneo; malaccas from Sumatra (nearly all the malaccas come from Siak, they are the stems of Calamus scipionum); whanghees (the stems of Phyllostachis) from Hongkong; lawyers (a species of Calamus) from Penang; ratans and dragons from Calcutta; white bamboos, black bamboos, fluted bamboos from other seaports in the great Bay of Bengal; partridge canes, jambees, and dog’s-head canes; Spanish reeds (Arundo donax); jacks (vine stems), cinnamons, pimentos (the stem of the allspice), cabbage-stalks, and coffee-branches from the West Indies, with the green-backed orange and knobby lemon sticks from the same colonies; triangular leaf stalks of the date palm from Tunis; myrtle, pomegranate, and olive sticks from Algeria and Italy; blue gums from Australia; mahoganies from Cuba; ebonies, tulips, and crocodiles; cabbage-stalks from Guernsey; and, perhaps, tooroos from Guiana.
But English sticks, and the foreign importations supposed to be such, are the favourites after all, and it is them that we would ask our readers to choose for their experiments. The chief, as already explained, are oak, ash, beech, blackthorn, cherry, maple, crab, and hazel, all of them within reach of those that walk or dwell in country places, and all easily dressed and made presentable.
The most useful of them are the ash and beech, which can be stained and cut to resemble any stick, and form the raw material of almost all the shams. A goodly proportion of the blackthorn sold in the streets are beech sticks carved and dyed. It is easy to dye a stick black. Brush it over it with a hot decoction of logwood and nutgalls, and when it is dry give it a brushing with vinegar in which rusty nails have lain for two or three days. If you wish to dye it red, add some dragon’s-blood gum to the polish; if you wish it to be yellow, use ochre instead of dragon’s blood.
All sticks should be cut in the winter and left to dry in the rough in a cool place. If the bark is to come away let the stick be half dry before you begin to work upon it. If the bark is to remain on, let the stick get thoroughly dry before you attempt to trim it.
Ash sticks can be got from the hedge or the thin branches of a pollard, but the best are young saplings taken up root and all, the root coming in handy for carving. Oak sticks are easy to carve, but difficult to dry without splitting; they are the toughest and strongest of all sticks, and are generally got from copse-wood stumps. Holly sticks are best with the bark off; they are best when cut from the secondary branches that shoot up parallel to the main trunk. Sometimes they are found as saplings, and then the roots are retained as groundwork for decoration. Elm sticks are easily got and easily worked, but seldom turn out satisfactorily. Hazel, on the contrary, gives first-rate stick wood, and is soft and easily cut, and if tolerably thick and well dried it will not bend. Blackthorn is the best stick in vogue at what has taken the place of the historic Donnybrook, but there are many tougher and more trustworthy weapons for the peculiar recreation in which it is usually employed. It is an easy stick to prepare and polish, but like case-hardened iron to carve. We are told that those who attempt its carving generally borrow the tools from some unsuspecting friend! Verb. sap., or rather verb. to those who have dried out its sap and not discovered brittleness. Cherry sticks and apple sticks come easily to hand, and are not unfrequently charred with a hot iron and stained with acids to enable them to be sold as foreigners. Birch and poplar are best left alone. British vines almost always warp; and brier and whitethorn, like all the Rosaceæ, have wood that snaps and splinters on the slightest provocation.
To shape a stick use hot sand or steam, and fix it in the desired position when hot. To straighten it lash it when hot to a board, or hang it up with a heavy weight at its end. To dress it or polish it employ one of the methods described in the former part of this section.
When carving a handle, choose some design that will be smooth to the hand. As examples try a man’s head. One of the most extraordinary collections of walking-sticks ever made was formed by Robertson of Kincraigie, who was popularly supposed to be ‘daft.’ It was his practice to carve on his stick the head of any friend or foe he met with, and in time he owned quite a portrait gallery of wooden heads, which proved the cause of much wonderment to his visitors, for every batch he entertained had their features promptly reproduced in oak or hazel! As suitable designs for stick-heads there may be instanced dogs’ heads, birds’ heads, particularly broad-beaked ones, such as goose and albatross, snakes’ heads, fishes, and squirrel and beaver tails. To get good results proper carving tools should be used, cutting up instead of down with the grain; but capital work can be done with an ordinary penknife, the secret of success consisting in never cutting away a chip unless its removal has been well thought over. Carving stick-heads is not like carving panels, and fine work is out of the question with regard to them. There is not much room for improvement in the art. We saw in the 1851 Exhibition a stick carved in China 4,000 years ago, and it was as well done as anything now obtainable from the London stick-seller.
Candidly, we must admit, that to attempt in this chapter to give anything like a complete and elaborate account of the making of the many different kinds of cages and hutches in which to keep pets of feather or pets of fur would be folly.
But I can give my readers many hints that will be of use to them on the subject in hand, and I may begin by telling them that it is not half so difficult to manufacture a good roomy, healthy, wholesome breeding-cage as may at first appear.
Nor need the cage you make be at all ugly or clumsy; only take pains with it, and do not be in a hurry, and I feel sure you will succeed. Do not let any person dishearten you by saying, ‘You can buy cheaper than you can make.’ I doubt if you could do so, but even allowing this were possible, you could not point proudly to your bought cage and say, ‘I made that.’
Now the first questions of practical moment I have to answer are these: 1, What tools are required in the manufacture of cages? And, 2, What materials?
An answer to the first question will enable you to decide at once whether or not you think it worth your time and trouble to go in for cage or hutch-making. I shall mention the tools that it is indispensable you should possess, and you may either buy them or borrow them, as you please. If you are merely going to make one cage or two, perhaps you had better borrow them. But I take this opportunity of reiterating this advice to all sensible boys who may have some spare time on their hands, to possess themselves of a box of useful tools. Cheap boxes of tools are worse than want. If you mean getting tools, get good ones. Do not be caught by the glitter and get-up of the box that contains them, nor by the sheen of the contents either. Be suspicious of articles that are advertised at an exceedingly low price, else you may find yourself possessed of hammers whose heads won’t stop on, saws as brittle as brass, gimlets and awls that burst their handles, planes with pot-metal tongues, and pliers as soft as cheese.
It is far better to fit your own box up, and fill it, buying the articles you require at a respectable ironmonger’s shop, and paying a fair price for them. Then all you have to remember is to keep everything in its place, and keep all steel work free from rust, and the box itself in its own corner and locked, so that Mary Ann, when she wants to break coals, will not have an opportunity of appropriating your axe.
Talking about rust, I find nothing better wherewith to smear tools that are to be laid past for a short time than a little blue ointment. You should keep a morsel of this in a chip box in a handy corner.
Well, now, as to birdcage and hutch-making, you must have, first and foremost, a bench whereon to work. Any old table will do if it be strong enough. But one thing it must have, and that is a contrivance to hold the wood on which you are working with the plane or other instrument. This may either be the wooden screw apparatus, or what is cheaper, the bench-lug.
The tools and things you really want, and must have, to make anything like a job, are (1) a nice sizeable saw, one that will either rip or cross-cut, so it must not have a back to it. (If you go in for fine and ornamental work about your cage it will be better to have a lathe—cost about £3 10s.—and a box of fretwork tools which will run you in to £1 10s. more. So take my advice—be content with what is useful for a time. If you breed some beautiful canaries you can sell them, and having extended the balance at your banker’s, go in for the ornamental afterwards.) (2) A plane or two, one plain plane, and one plough. I do not advise a jack. I know when I was a boy I could not manage the jack-plane nearly so well as the little short one. (3) Some chisels; say three; they are cheap and useful in a thousand ways. Mind, always keep them sharp, and do not use the mallet much on the end of them. (4) A wooden mallet. (5) A hammer or two, with claws at the end. (6) A spokeshave. (7) Pliers and pincers for ironwork. (8) A boring brace and bits to fit. (9) A bradawl or two. (10) A small hand-vice. (N.B.—This last is most essential for holding your wires, etc. Sometimes this vice itself will want holding to enable you to work with both hands. Very well, be handy, fasten it on to the end of your bench by means of the lug or screw apparatus.) (11) A two-foot rule. Do not buy a cheap one; it goes all out of shape in no time; besides, if you have a really serviceable article you can use it as a square. (12) A hone or sharpening stone. (13) Etceteras, in the shape of nails and screws of various sizes (I myself use nothing but the round French nails; they do not split the wood; they go home kindly, and with ordinary care they do not bend); a jam-pot to heat your glue, some glue to heat, a carpenter’s pencil, sand-paper, and a small oil-flask. Other little things may suggest themselves to you; I can’t think of anything else at present. And I would not mind beginning to make either an ordinary breeding cage or a hutch at this moment with the tools I have just named.
But, ‘What a lot!’ you will say, and ‘what a deal of money they will cost!’ Yes, but think of the many useful things you can make with those tools, quite independent of either cage or hutch.
And now as to the materials. What are these? I answer in two words, wood and wire. The wood may be almost any sort, but it must be very well seasoned, else as soon as it gets wet you will find the bottom of your cage coming off, or the back bulging out, and the whole concern gaping in the most unseemly way. The parts to be polished and stained may be hard wood.
Fig. 1.—Simple Breeding Cage.
The cage I have had figured is an ordinary two-roomed breeding-cage. It might have been a trifle easier for you to have tried your ‘’prentice han’,’ as Burns calls it, on perhaps a show-cage to begin with, but I cannot forget that the cock canary may have sometimes to be separated for a time from the hen; hence that partition with the hole in it, a hole that may be closed.
Some cagemen recommend this to be a fixture, but do you not think with me that if the partition can be withdrawn, so as to make both cages into one big one when required, it is better?
I have already said that the wood a cage is made of is a matter of secondary importance. The body may be pine, for instance, and the front parts any kind of ordinary hard wood—mahogany to wit. The cage (Fig. 2) which is now before us is one of the German kind, manufactured by Mr. Abrahams, naturalist, St. George Street East. The nest has, however, been put in the drawing in the wrong compartment.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3.
In order to make a breeding-cage like this, you repair to your working shop or garret, and having wood, wires, and tools all handy, you first determine the size you wish it to be. Well, I am of opinion that birds cannot have too much room; therefore, for sake of a little more wood and a little more wire, do not begrudge them space; say, 22 in. long, 11 in. wide, and 14 in. high. You can, I think, get wood wide enough to have the back all one piece, as well as each side and the bottom. If you cannot, just use your ingenuity, and make a neat job of joining.
Measure and cut the wood for the top and bottom first, both exactly the same, then the sides ditto. Now plane the wood very nicely, leaving it about three-eighths to half an inch thick. Do the same by the piece of wood that is to form the back.
No dovetailing is needed, and that is a good thing, is it not? Now cut out your square doorway in each gable. If you do this neatly the pieces that you have sawed out or cut out will themselves form the doors. Size of each door—say four inches square. This is big enough for any one’s hand, and big enough to put the nest in. But never mind fitting the doors at present; we will do that after.
Next proceed to fix the box-work of the cage; that is, fasten sides, back, and bottom in their positions, and we will then turn our attention to the front and the internal fittings. There is a hole in the back part, by-the-way, by which you hang the cage on a nail. You may as well make that before you fix up. Have your small nails, your hammer, and your glue-pot at hand, the latter hot, because before you send the nails quite home you must insert a goodly dose of glue. This is important, because it entirely fills up any crevice that might otherwise harbour vermin, and if these once get into your breeding-cage your prospects of doing any good are very likely to be ruined for one season.
Now nail and glue your sides to the back first and foremost, then turn the cage upside down, and fasten in the same way the bottom to the sides and back, reverse and do the same to the top. If you have previously taken correct measurements of the parts, the body of your cage will now look square and fair and neat. If you have not, you had better take it to pieces again and mend matters before you go any further.
Direct your attention next to the front, but you had better let the work you have already done get firm and dry before doing much more to it. Meanwhile measure and make the piece of hard wood that crosses the cage in front just above the bottom drawer (Fig. 2, A).This should be from two to two and a half inches wide, and an oblong space or opening (B B) is to be left at each end. These are for the little seed-tins to fit in. As soon as you have made this piece of wood (A) and dressed it most neatly, you may place it in position. This must be most carefully done, leaving a full inch of space beneath it for your bottom drawer or false bottom. Nail it from the sides.