Lost Art Press

Category: Historical Images

Grinding an Axe

Posted on by fitz

grinding_an_axe_fig_1-4
The best recommendation a carpenter can possess is a good kit of tools, well worn and in fine condition. A chest full of brand-new tools, however nice they may look, is of no use as a recommendation, for it is evident that the man has never used them. When the tools are half worn out, and still are in good condition and ready for instant use, they form pretty good evidence that their owner understands his business.

In looking over a piece of kit possessed by a “wood butcher” not long since, the writer saw an axe which looked like the one shown in Fig 1. There was a big piece broken out of the edge at a, where a spike had evidently come in contact with the edge of the tool. To put this tool in shape considerable grinding must be done.

The first step is to hold the axe against the edge of the grindstone, as shown in Fig 2, until the broken part is entirely removed, leaving the edge at b probably about one-sixteenth of an inch thick. The next step is shown in Fig 3. Rest the head or pole, of the axe, upon the grindstone frame, making a mark at c, so as to be able to replace the axe at will after looking at it. By resting the head of the axe at all times at c, the bevel at d is made flat, and not as shown in Fig. 4. Here there are something more than a dozen different bevels, to say nothing of a corner being ground off where the axe evidently slipped when being placed upon the stone.
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The Use and Abuse of Screws in Wood Work

Posted on by fitz

screw_patent_sArchimedes is credited with the invention of the screw, but whether the famous geometrician’s labours extended much further than the enunciation of the scientific principles and the mechanical power of the screw, it is difficult to say. If he made a screw, he certainly must have tried its effect, and was probably well satisfied with its performance, for in the whole range of mechanical appliances in the constructive arts there is not a more useful article than the screw.

Archimedes is further reported to have said, “Give me a prop, a position, and a lever strong enough, and I will move the world,” and, no doubt, if these conditions could be granted to him, he, as well as others after him, could lift the earth, or aught upon the earth, by a combination of the tremendous lifting and driving powers exercised by a series of screws, apart from the lever.

Screws are various, and of various sizes, forms, and materials, but the same principle runs through them all, whether they be manufactured for use in metal or woodwork, or for exerting a lifting, driving, or pressing power separately. Our object here is not to treat of screw-cutting, but rather screw-driving in woodwork, and to throw out some useful hints to the building constituency, and particularly workmen.

The use and abuse of screws is a matter of importance to architects, builders, and their clients, for it is according to the way screws may be applied in several building and kindred operations that good or bad workmanship will be evidenced.
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DON’TS for Makers of Models and Moulds

Posted on by fitz

donts

DON’T start your job until you have it well fixed in your mind, or you may get in a mess later on.

DON’T trouble the foreman with foolish questions. He has troubles of his own. Besides, you may expose your own ignorance; but

DON’T try to get along without really necessary information which the foreman may have forgotten to give you. You may guess wrong.

DON’T take time to lay out a job, and then not use the lay-out; but

DON’T rush at a job.
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The Wedge

Posted on by fitz

wedges_1859273. The Wedge. Figure 105 represents a well formed iron wedge, and a is the head, b is one of the sides, and d is one of the edges, and e is the entering edge. A wedge will not rebound as readily when the corners, at the entering edge, are made flush, or square, like the figure, as it will when the corners are rounded off very much, like the edge of an old ax, the corners of which are well ground off. Sharp corners of an iron wedge make it stick when entering.

274. Figure 106 is a very ill shapen wedge but very like the iron wedges which many laborers use, and exactly like the wooden wedges which are often made with the false impression that they will be more effective of such a form than if they were like figure 105. But wooden wedges of such a form cannot possibly be as effective, for any purpose, as if they were like figure 105; because, small wedges of such an ill form will be crushed at the entering point before they are half driven in, and if large wedges are made of such a form, it requires a greater number of blows to drive one in far enough to open a log two inches.

275. Every author whose writings I have consulted on the subject of the wedge, has simply spoke of it in philosophical or theoretical terms, and the most important considerations which affect, directly or remotely, many of the operations of the farm, and which are all-important for the beginner to understand, have been entirely overlooked or rejected, and what has been penned in reference to the wedge, if put into practice, according to the strict letter of the various writers, will, in practice, lead the beginner into most egregious errors.
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