From L. R. H., North Argyle, N.Y. — Will you please inform me what philosophical principle is involved in the fact that a long screw-driver will turn a screw with less power than a short one? Can you explain the phenomenon to an unphilosophical subscriber?
Answer.—Our correspondent, in asking his question, virtually asserts that, with a long screw-driver, more power can be applied to the head of a screw than with a short one. This fact has often been denied, yet we believe it to be well established. The difference in the lengths of the screw-drivers admits of a difference in the manner of using them, and this difference in the way of using accounts for the difference in the power exerted. (more…)
“Well, I don’t call a monkey wrench a screw driver. I call a screw a thing with a slotted head, and a screwdriver, the thing that goes into the slot to turn the screw.”
That remark was made in the shop, and was pretty near correct. Outside of the shop no one ever thinks of calling anything a screw driver except the instrument used to turn slotted screws. I had almost said wood screws, but that would have discarded the screw driver most in sight, that little convenience that comes, and goes, with every sewing machine, to tempt the operators to get them out of repair, and which, it is needless to say, isn’t, sometimes, worth the powder it would take to blow it to Chic—, but after all, it serves its purpose—what more would you want? And it is used by more people than any other mechanical instrument.
In fact few domestic screw drivers are just what they should be; and carpenters screw drivers are not much better. Wood screws are of various lengths and sizes. You can get little bits of wood screws, an inch long, or you can get them, just the same length, as big as a lead pencil.
Here are half a dozen estrays now on my desk while I write; how, whence, or when they came I don’t know. They will do for samples, and they vary from an eighth to more than a quarter of an inch in size. Now it don’t stand to reason that the little screw—not much bigger than a knitting needle, requires the same size and kind of a screw driver that the big one does. (more…)
The tendency of our times is to disregard old maxims. It is true, many of them, based on the experience of other people under very different conditions, are not applicable in our day. “Haste makes waste” may be true in the workshop, but the business man knows that “time is money,” and it pays to be in a hurry when the market shows signs of a change.
The good old maxim that “whatever is worth doing is worth doing well,” is too often forgotten. “That is good enough for him, or for the money,” is a poor excuse for a man to sacrifice his good name, and still worse to induce him to acquire careless habits. It has been said that while American workmen are better paid, better fed, better educated, and, we may add, better behaved, than those of any other country, they can beat the world in slighting their work and cheating their customers and employers. (more…)
The first thought that comes into my mind concerning this subject is borrowing and lending tools. I wish I were able to do this part of the subject full justice, but perhaps space in Carpentry and Building would not be available for me to enlarge upon it. When I began the trade it was expected that every journeyman should furnish his own tools to work with. Nowadays it seems to be that each one expects some one else to furnish him tools. It is said, and I believe it is true, that there is no other trade which has so large a proportion of botches to skilled workmen as that of carpentry. The question arises—why is it so? It seems to me that borrowing tools causes more of it than all other reasons put together. This perhaps is a broad assertion, but arguments can be advanced in proof of it. (more…)
