—Now that you know about tools and the properties of metals there are a few other little things which, if you will bear them in mind, will enable you to make nearly anything you want to. The first has to do with drawing and the others with working the metals themselves.
First Sketch Your Ideas.
—To start out and try to make an object which you have in mind without sketching it on paper first so that you can see just what size to cut and shape it, and how it will look when you have finished it, is the first step toward being a disappointed boy.
When you get an abstract idea for a design or a machine that you want to put in concrete form take a rule and compasses, pencil and paper and draw it out to scale, that is, make a drawing of it and mark the sizes, or dimensions, of each part just as it should be when the thing is done.
By roughly sketching the object, or, better, by making an accurate working drawing of it before you do anything else you will save time, patience and materials.[21]
[21] How to make working drawings is explained in [Chapter V]. Fuller directions will be found in Inventing for Boys, by the present author, published by Frederick A. Stokes Company, N. Y.
Sheet Metal Work.
—Cutting and Sawing.
—After having traced or otherwise marked out the design or shape you want on the sheet of metal with the sharp point of your center punch or an awl, or scribed it with your dividers you can cut it out with your snips if the sheet is thin enough. If it is too thick to be sheared then saw it out with your jeweler’s or hack saw.
Should you want to make a hole or an open design of any kind in thin sheet metal you can easily punch it in with your center punch, or cut it out with a stencil cutter’s chisel, which is simply a very sharp cold chisel.[22] But should the metal be too thick to punch or cut in this way drill a small hole in it and you can then saw out the part with a jeweler’s saw frame and blade just as you would saw out a piece of wood with a scroll saw, though you may have to hold the metal in a vise.