Category: Historical Images

Glueing.
The right sort of glue to use for ordinary work is “best Scotch” (inferior kinds are often adulterated with lime). This glue is sold at all good tool shops; but if it cannot be obtained, choose the most transparent cakes. For fine work in light-coloured woods, Salisbury glue may be used; this is made in thin cakes, and is of a clear amber colour.

Preparation of the glue. Break it into small pieces with the hammer, and soak for at least twelve hours in sufficient water to keep it covered even when swollen by the water it absorbs: this water must be cold. It is no use attempting to melt glue by putting it into hot water; it will always be stringy, and give endless trouble. Put the pieces of soaked glue without any superfluous water into the glue pot, taking care that the outer vessel is kept full of water, which will prevent the glue in the inner vessel from burning ; this is very important.
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(An Open Letter)

Yes, we have all been reading Sir Walter Scott’s journal, and are noway surprised but every way pleased to hear that you have taken to heart his pathetic lament when in old age winter restricted his outdoor exercise, and he regretted that he was no mechanic to solace himself with a turning-lathe or joiner’s bench. And so you have invested in an American lathe with velocipede action, which you drive sitting, hoping to get as much exercise in an hour of an evening at home as by a six-mile run on a tricycle.

Meantime, by way of beginning, you have broken the points of your whole kit of tools and crumpled up two leaves of the quick-feed pinion, and with them three teeth of the rack, to say nothing of smashing a finger-nail with the jaw of the indispensable scrollchuck (by the by, a rubber fetlock-ring effectually guards against this last disaster), and the net result of your labours is some bushels of shavings with a couple of pounds of brass and iron dust. Naturally at this point you desire an opinion on your prospects as a craftsman.
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Many persons upon whom fortune does not smile, or who wish to be rich very quickly, think that nowadays it is not possible for a simple man to get to the top of the tree, because all occupations are so overstocked, and there are already too many people in the world. That this opinion is a false one, and that the right man can always do something for himself, if he has the real stuff in him, and perseveres, the following true story proves:

In the year 1826 a poor journeyman turner named Muhle, in worn-out shoes through which his bare toes projected, with a knapsack on his weary back, arrived at a little village not far from Colmar, in Alsace. In this village was an engine-factory, in which our workman had come to look for employment. But the poor fellow’s ragged, miserable appearance did not tell in his favor, and the master of the factory at once sent him about his business.
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It is an old saying that a child must creep before it can walk. We grow by degrees in almost every thing, and in nearly every direction. The child gradually increases in size—though not so very gradually sometimes—until it comes to the stature of a man or woman.

We grow in knowledge—at first knowing but little, the child slowly acquires the information that, if rightly used, will make him wise in mature years. So it is everywhere, “little by little” the great gains are made. It is step after step that the highest mountain is climbed; one brick upon another and the greatest wall is laid. “Little drops of water; little grains, etc.”
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Let any farmer or person of moderate means look round his house and make a careful minute of all the odd jobs he will find which require to be done. Let him take paper or a memorandum book and note them down. He will find at least twenty little matters requiring repair or amendment. The plank-way to the well or yard; the fence round the garden; a garden gate that will open easily and close itself; repairs to the box protecting the well or cistern; mending tools, harness—and in short almost innumerable small matters all wanting to be done, either on wet days or at some leisure time.

Every one who is not a natural sloven is fully aware of the necessity of attending to these matters, but the great difficulty is he has no tools. His experience goes to show that the last time he tried to do anything of the kind he had to go to a neighbor and borrow some tools to work with. The saw was too close, and very much otherwise than sharp; the chisels were all too large or too small; the bit-stock had lost its spring and would not hold the bits in their place, so that he could not withdraw them, and perhaps broke some and had to buy new ones to replace them. Nothing was fit to use, and hence what he did was wretchedly done.
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