Author: fitz

In man there is what may be termed a “making instinct,” and our houses, garments, ships, machinery, and in fact, everything we use, are the practical results of this instinct. How important then that this faculty be cultivated, and that the idea be at once and forever abandoned that none but mechanics require this great element of usefulness and happiness.

Whatever a man’s occupation, whether he be a farmer, a merchant, an artist or a mechanic, there are hourly occasions for its practical application. Being thus general in its usefulness, the cultivation of this constructive faculty should be a primary consideration with parents. Skill in the use of tools is of incalculable advantage. It gives useful employment to many an otherwise idle hour. It prompts one to add a thousand little conveniences to the house, which but for this skill would never be made.

In a word, it is the carrying out, in a fuller sense, of the design of the Creator, when he implanted this faculty of constructiveness within us. Let it then be cultivated in children. Indulge the propensity to make waterwheels and miniature wagons, kites and toy boats, sleds and houses, anything in fact which will serve to develop it and render it practically useful.

Give the boys good pocket knives, and what is better, give them a good workshop. Employed in it, they will not only be kept out of mischief, but they will be strengthening their muscles, exercising their mental powers, and fitting themselves for greater usefulness, when they shall be called upon to take their place in the ranks of men.

Scientific American – January 9, 1864

—Jeff Burks

Planing a board of any width and length by hand, so that it will be true, need not call for any special talent on the part of a patternmaker, yet tradition and bigotry are responsible for the survival of the belief that expert handling of “winding strips” furnishes the only correct means of planing a board surface out of wind.

As this apparently hard-and-fast shibboleth has still many adherents, an attempt to shatter the long established belief and practice is at best but a thankless task. The use of “winding strips” is so manifestly unnecessary that the chief wonder to any thinking man is, that the use of them didn’t “die abornin’.”
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Whether it is that untidiness leads to ruin or that a manufacturer who is losing money has not the moral stamina to keep things in trim, thrifty shape is a hard matter to determine, but true it is that untidiness in the shop and office and ruin are such close friends that they are ordinarily seen together, and the sight of one suggests the other.

We have often seen men of rare industry, judged by their hustling manner, who would spend much time each day looking for tools they had forgotten where they left, stumbling over piles of stray castings left under the lathe or piled on or under the bench, or pawing those castings over for a piece somewhere in this pile or that, when it ought to be in a place by itself, going from tool to tool or bench to bench to find or borrow a drill or wrench or hammer or block, when there should be just one place to find the desired article.
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The Boss Loses Out and Timmins Gets the Job
(Thanks to his Two-Wheeled Runabout)

     “Not this afternoon, Mr. Green,” the boss was saying over the phone.

     “We are pretty busy here in the shop and two of the boys are out on the other side of town on a job—” “I’m sorry, but I can’t get anyone out to you this afternoon.”

     “Have someone out there first thing in the morning, but—” “Won’t do, you say?”—“You’re working on your barn and want someone to come right out to help you.”—“Do I know of anyone you can get?”—

     “Well, let’s see. There’s a fellow over on the east side—name is Timmins—thinks he’s a carpenter. You might get ahold of him.”—“I don’t think he’s very busy, and he’s got one of them there motorcycles he dodges about on quite a bit. He ought to be able to get out there to finish up for you this afternoon.”—
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