DOORS AND WINDOWS
If second-hand material is not used it is advisable to purchase these staple articles from a mill where they are made in standard sizes.
When ordered for certain size spaces they come a little too large. This allowance is for material to be removed in fitting. Inside doors are usually the last things to be hung. The windows should be hung as soon as the construction will allow it, in order to keep out rain.
Secure the pulleys for upper and lower sash into the window frame on both sides of parting strip about four inches from top of window frame.
Attach the sash cord and find its proper length by experiment. Tie securely to sash weights. See that the two sashes make a good, tight joint where they meet, and tack the window stop to frame with brads. The stop is to be ordered with the trim, and mitred at the top. The construction at the sill is shown at a ([Fig. 230]).
The arrangement of door frames is shown at b. After mitring the door stop, nail to door frame at a distance from its edge equal to thickness of door. Fit the door by planing to the space inside frame. The hinges are put on as shown, being sunk flush with edge of both door and door frame. When hanging the door, it is a good plan to place small wedges under it, to allow for the sag which will result as soon as its weight is thrown on the hinges.
Saddles are usually placed under doors to allow them to swing clear of carpet and rugs. To allow for the thickness of these saddles, 3⁄4 inch should be allowed between floor and bottom of door. The saddles are to be fitted around edges of door frame, making a neat finish.
For plastered walls a six-inch base board is necessary. This may be put on with butt joints and nailed to studding with small head finishing nails, as for all trim.
The base is usually topped by a base moulding mitred in the corners.
This style of construction is for a permanent house. For rough or temporary buildings, many modifications may be adopted. Batten doors, as described for the poultry house, may be cheaply and readily made.
Batten blinds made by the same method are very desirable for buildings like summer camps, which are to be vacant for long periods. This does away with the temptation some people find to break windows in unoccupied houses.
The siding for a small building may be of tongue and groove boards put on vertically, and now that lumber is so expensive these items are all important.
The lumber from packing cases may be used for making very many of the pieces of furniture in a camp, such as stools, benches, tables, shelves, cupboards, bookcases, etc. Many of these useful articles can be made without tearing the boxes apart.
A very useful chest and seat combined may be made by fitting a box with a strong cover, strengthened by cleats on its under side and hinged with strap hinges to the back.
A cushion of burlap filled with shavings, straw, seaweed, or sweet grass will make this a very satisfactory settee, and the storage space inside will always be available. The outside of the box should be smoothed, all nail holes filled with putty, and the whole thing stained.
Very interesting panelling effects may be obtained by tacking on strips of the same thickness as the outside cleats.
Fig. 231. Chest made from packing case
Where the supply of wood is limited, many similar articles will suggest themselves to the young carpenter. The chair shown at [Fig. 231]a can all be made of wood from packing boxes, except the square legs. These may be obtained by sawing 2 × 4 inch spruce in half and planing smooth. The rails can be put on with mortise and tenon, or they may be gained into the legs and fastened with nails or screws. The seat is built up of several pieces fastened to cleats on under side, with front edges rounded. To make this hard bottomed chair more comfortable, have a thin cushion of canvas or burlap fastened by a canvas cover and tacked to edges. The wide strip across the back may be treated in the same way. One coat of stain, or two of Japalac or some similarly prepared varnish will make a very serviceable finish for camp purposes.
Fig. 231a. Chair
The proportions of a porch settee of the same general character are given at [Fig. 231b]. The legs may be cut out of pieces of spruce studding, and all but the long rails obtained from box material. These long pieces may be cut from 7⁄8-inch siding left over when putting up the cabin. Floor boards with tongue and groove planed off will answer very well.
The long back strip will be more rigid if mortised into the ends, and the upright strips will be needed to give it the necessary strength.
Fig. 231b. Settee made from box material
One of the most comfortable articles for a camp in the woods is the couch hammock. The materials required are:
| A cot. |
| Four yards of strong canvas a yard wide. |
| Forty feet of clothesline. |
| Two chains or strong pieces of rope about 4 or 5 feet long. |
| A grommet set and some grommets. |
Remove the legs from the cot. They are usually attached by bolts or rivets. If the latter, cut with a cold chisel.
Lay the canvas in one piece on the floor and place the cot at its centre. Make pencil marks at the ends to indicate where the fold begins as at B B ([Fig. 232]). Lap the canvas as shown and sew securely, leaving a space at the fold for the clothesline to pass through.
The square ends are to be hemmed and folded over pieces of broomstick.
With the grommet punch make holes through the canvas just below the broomstick and secure with the grommets. Make these holes about 5 inches apart. They are to hold the line which is to pass from iron fitting C through first grommet hole and back until it has passed once through each grommet.
Fig. 232. Couch hammock made from a cot
The fitting is found on all hammocks and can be taken from an old one, or an iron ring may be substituted. Before beginning to weave the rope through the grommets, pass its end down to B and make fast to a stout screw eye fastened to under side of frame of cot. This brings the weight on the rope instead of on the canvas, an important item when five or six people sit on the couch at one time. Treat both ends alike. The canvas will be wide enough to fold up and entirely cover the edges of cot. When everything has been adjusted, fasten the chains or heavy rope to the iron rings, and secure to the trees or veranda columns by heavy hooks. A light mattress covered with blankets, or a specially made cushion to cover the whole cot, and several sofa pillows will add the finishing touches to a very serviceable and satisfactory article.
The cost will be about one third of those on sale, and this may be reduced 50 per cent. if a grommet set can be borrowed, as this is the chief item of expense, assuming that an old cot is used.
This hammock should not be left out in the rain, as its steel springs will rust.
[XLIX]
STAINING, POLISHING, AND FINISHING
This branch of woodwork is a trade by itself and under modern methods of specialization the men who do this work do nothing else. The methods of finishing are legion and every polisher has a few little "kinks" of his own which he regards as trade secrets.
The personal equation enters very largely into the work, and if twenty boys have a given method explained to them and they all polish, say, a box of the same size and material, there will result twenty different kinds of polished surfaces.
This is due to difference in temperament. Some boys are patient and painstaking. Others are nervously anxious to get through and see how it looks. It is a fact particularly true of finishing that it cannot be hurried without endangering the result. Every coat must be thoroughly dry and hard before the next one is put on. Different woods require different treatment, and the elements of good taste, colour, and harmony all enter into the problem.
These statements are not made to discourage the young woodworker, because finishing can be done well by any boy who will use reasonable care, but to emphasize the fact that it is poor policy to make a fine piece of woodwork and then spoil it at the last moment by hurry.
Staining is something on which opinions differ greatly. Some artists claim that only the natural colour of the wood should be used, but a great deal of staining is done, and we must leave artistic arguments to others.
The extent to which staining is carried may be illustrated by the following finishes used on one kind of wood—oak:
| Golden oak | Antwerp oak | Rotterdam |
| English oak | Ox blood | Antique |
| Forest green | Weathered oak | Cathedral oak |
| Austrian | Flemish brown | Flemish green |
| Silver gray | Sumatra brown | Filipino |
| Mission oak | Malachite | Fumed oak |
| Bog oak |
The writer believes that staining to make imitations is wrong, such as staining cherry or birch to give the impression of mahogany.
The list of materials for staining is very bewildering, and it is advisable to reduce the list to a few reliable ones and learn to use them well. They may be divided roughly into three classes: oil stains, water stains, and stains produced from drugs or chemicals.
Oil stains are dry colours ground in oil such as chrome yellow, Prussian blue, burnt umber, burnt sienna, etc. When preparing one of these for use, thin with turpentine and linseed oil and apply with a brush. After it has stood for a few moments rub off with a piece of cotton waste or rag.
Water stains are colours dissolved in water.
After applying this kind allow it to dry. Sand-paper the surface flat and apply a second coat of half the strength.
Stains produced from drugs and chemicals include such materials as logwood, bichromate of potash, ammonia, iron sulphate, acetate of iron, etc.
The preparation of the surfaces to be finished is very important and means the removing of any defects, such as scratches, by means of plane, scraper, and fine sand-paper.
These defects always show much more prominently after polishing than before, so that too great pains cannot be taken in preparation. Assuming that the surface is ready, the first question to be considered is whether the wood is open or close grained. If an open grained wood, a coat of filler may be used; if close grained this may be dispensed with. The following list will enable the beginner to decide:
| Open grained woods requiring filler: |
| Oak, ash, chestnut, mahogany, walnut, butternut. |
| Close grained woods; no filler required: |
| White wood, pine, cherry, birch, beech, gum, sycamore or buttonball; maple, cedar, cypress, red wood. |
Filler may be made at home, but it is a staple article to be found in paint stores and it is advisable to buy it ready made. It comes in paste and liquid forms, and the paste is recommended. It must be thinned with turpentine to the consistency of cream and applied with a brush. As soon as it begins to dry, rub off the excess across the grain with a handful of excelsior, waste, burlap, or rags and allow it to stand over night to dry.
When the wood is to be stained the colour is frequently mixed with the filler.
The object of all this is to fill up the pores of the wood to give a flat, solid surface for the polishing. Sometimes even on open grained woods filler is omitted entirely.
Suppose that the work in hand is a footstool or tabourette made of oak and we wish to give it a forest green finish.
Photograph by Helen W. Cooke
Staining and Polishing.
The process would be as follows:
Prepare the stain by mixing a small quantity of chrome yellow and Prussian blue on a piece of wood. Mix thoroughly with a putty knife or old chisel and thin with boiled linseed oil and turpentine; add blue or yellow until a beautiful dark green is obtained. Add this to the filler, using turpentine for thinning, until the whole mass of liquid is the desired colour and as thick as cream. Paint the footstool all over with this filler. As soon as it starts to dry, rub off as explained.
The next day sand-paper smooth and give a coat of shellac. When hard, sand-paper flat and give a second coat of shellac.
From this point on the process depends on whether a glossy polish is desired or a dead flat surface. For an article of furniture like a footstool a highly polished surface would be a mistake, as it would soon be scratched, and while furniture is not to be abused, it is to be used, and shoe nails make scratches.
A dead flat surface may be obtained by rubbing down the third coat of shellac with fine ground pumice stone or rotten stone and water. If too flat, rub the surface with raw linseed oil and wipe dry.
Some boys will obtain a better finish with two coats of shellac than others will with four.
After the first coat of shellac, varnish is often used for the remaining coats, but it takes much longer to harden and requires careful handling.
Shellac is a product obtained from certain trees in the Orient. It may be bought in the dry state at paint stores and dissolved in alcohol. Grain alcohol is the best and most expensive, but wood alcohol is cheaper and will answer all ordinary purposes. The shellac may be bought in cans all ready for use, and there are two distinct kinds—orange and white.
White shellac is the more expensive, but should be used on light-coloured woods, such as maple, to avoid spoiling the colour.
Varnish comes in so many grades and kinds that it is best to go to a reliable dealer and tell him just for what purpose you expect to use it. There are outside varnishes, rubbing varnishes, light flowing varnishes, etc.
When by exposure it becomes thick so that the brush drags, it should be thinned with a little turpentine.
There is a great difference in the methods of using shellac and varnish. The former being dissolved in alcohol evaporates quickly, so that it must be put on thinly and as rapidly as possible. Varnish, on the other hand, may take forty-eight hours or more to dry, so that the brush can be drawn over the surface several times to remove air bubbles. It is not possible to do this with shellac. The brush used in shellac should never be laid on the top of the jar or can, as it will harden in a very short time. The care of brushes is an important item. Varnish brushes should be cleaned with turpentine, shellac brushes with alcohol, and when cleaned it is better to keep all brushes in a pail of water than to allow them to become dry.
The jar or wide mouthed bottle used for shellac should be kept covered else a great deal will be lost by evaporation. A jam jar makes a convenient receptacle for this, as it has an opening wide enough to allow the use of a flat brush. Evaporation may be prevented by inverting another jar of the same size over it. The shellac on the rim will hold them together practically airtight with the brush inside.