One of the handiest things in a garden is a wheelbarrow, and one of the prettiest for the young carpenter to exercise his ingenuity upon. To make one, take a wide plank or board about an inch and a quarter thick. Proceed to your bench, and having fitted it to its proper position, take your jack plane and plane off the rough, next use your smoothing plane to make it smooth. Then take your pencil and draw upon its side the figure of a wheelbarrow. Then take your compass saw and cut round the marks you have made: to do this you will have to fix your board in the screw of your bench. When this is done take your spoke shave, and shave the edges all round till they are very smooth and even, and you have one side of your barrow. Lay this on another piece of board, and mark the shape of it with your pencil; cut and shave it exactly as you did the first side, so that when finished the two will exactly correspond; then cut a piece off another board for the back and front of the barrow, by the same method you cut the sides, and plane and finish them up in a similar way. Cut some tenons at the end of each exactly to correspond with the mortices on the sides, let them be a trifle larger than the mortices, so that they will drive in tight. Then cut the bottom out neatly, and nail it to the sides. Having proceeded thus far, cut out the legs of your barrow, and nail one on each side. Give each leg a shoulder for the sides to rest upon.
To make the wheel. Take a piece of board, and strike a circle upon it the size you wish your wheel to be of, and with the compass saw cut close round to the stroke; cut out a square hole in the center for the nave to join. Then get the blacksmith to put an iron rim round the wheel to keep it from splitting, and a round pin in each side of the nave, and put a staple in each side of the barrow to keep the wheel in its place. Paint the whole of any color you choose, and you will have a wheelbarrow.
THE WAY TO MAKE A BOX.
First ascertain the size you wish your box to be of. Then cut off your stuff, but take care to cut it a quarter of an inch longer than the size of your box from outside to outside. Should you want it deeper or broader than the length of a deal, the widest of which is generally only eleven inches; suppose, for instance, you wish your box to be 18 inches deep, and you have only 9-inch deal to make it with, you will of course have to join two together, or make what is called in carpentering a gluejoint. First, then, after you have cut off your stuff, take your jack plane and “scuffle the rough off,” then put your board edgeways into the bench-screw, and take your trying plane or long plane to get the edge of the deals that are to be glued together perfectly straight and even; and lastly use the joiner plane, which will take off a nice uniform shaving of the whole length of the board. Proceed exactly in the same manner with the other board to be joined to the first. Then, after having made each thoroughly smooth, clap the two together and see if they will lie close in every part; if not you must plane them till they do, taking care to plane the edges perfectly square, or at right angles to the surface of the board, for if you are not careful in this particular, when your boards are glued together they will be of this form. When you have joined them properly for glueing, let your glue be nicely hot and not too thick, and hold both edges of the boards together so that you can with a brush put the glue on both at one time, put the two together very quickly, let one of them be in the bench-screw, and while there rub the other backwards and forwards until the glue sets, which it will soon do if well joined. Let the whole dry, and then the glued part will be as strong as any other part of the board.
After your sides, ends, bottom, and top are thus prepared, you must then plane them up nicely, so that they are perfectly smooth and straight. Use first the jack plane, then the trying plane. When this is done you have to proceed to a nice little job, namely, to dovetail the corners together so as to form your box. In this process much depends upon the planing and squaring of the stuff, for if you have not done this nicely the dovetailing will be very imperfectly performed. Assuming that everything has been well done, then take the two ends of the box, and see that each is perfectly square and true to the other. Then allow one-eighth of an inch more than the thickness of your sides, and set out the ends, squaring it over on both sides, which when the dovetails are cut out will form the inside of the box.
TO CUT THE DOVETAILS.
Take one “end-piece” of the box, and place it endways into the bench-screw, and mark out the dovetails on the edge of the board inside, then with your dovetail saw cut in into the marks down to the lines squared over on the flat side. Then with a chisel cut out that part of the wood that is crossed, and leave the other part, this being the part which will form the pins or tails. Then take one side of your box and lay it flat on the bench, the inside uppermost; then place the end you have cut on it, keeping the edges flush, and mark round the shape of the pins, which will leave their form on the side piece, the black places being the mortices which are to be cut out. In cutting out these you must be careful to cut within side of the stroke, so that the mortices will be a little smaller than the pins, which will admit of their being driven in quite tight, and will allow the glue to adhere to them (for you have to glue these when you fix them). When you have thus put the ends and sides together let them stand till the glue gets dry, then take your planes and plane the quarter of an inch off the pins which you allowed to be a little longer than the length of the box, and you have then made the body of your box.
THE BOTTOM OF THE BOX.
Cut your bottom the exact size of the box, nail the bottom on, and “get out” a piece of wood (by cutting and planing in the usual manner) to nail round so as to form a skirting to it, and at the same time hide the joints of the bottom; “get out” a similar piece of wood to nail round the top which will form the lid. Then get a pair of box joints and a lock, and having put them on by a stroke of your own ingenuity, you will have a “box.”