Fig. 350.
The work of getting out the stock for boxes and making the joints can be done so quickly and accurately (and usually cheaply) by a circular saw or other machine that much time is saved, when making nice boxes, by having the parts sawed at a mill. The remarks made at the end of the introduction to Chapter X. (on Furniture), in regard to getting out your work, putting together, smoothing, and finishing, apply equally to making the better class of boxes and chests, and the general details of the work do not differ from those of the articles shown in that chapter. See also, Marking, Rule, Square, Saw, Plane, Nailing, Nail-set, Screws, Hinges, Locks, Scraper, Sandpaper, and Finishing, in [Part V].
Toy Boats.—A few suggestions about the wood-work of the hulls of toy boats may be useful to the beginner. The details of rigging and discussion of the merits of the various types and designs are matters which do not come within the scope of this book, and you can easily find information upon these points.
Making your boats yourself is half the fun, of course, and capital practice with tools as well as a valuable introduction to the building of model yachts, which you may undertake later, and to the general subject of boat-building and sailing. Making different types and sailing them is both interesting and instructive.
You will quite often see little boats fitted up as exact copies in miniature of real vessels, with all the complexity of fittings, rigging, and minor details found in the larger boats. These models are often interesting specimens of skill,—as pieces of handiwork,—but the time can usually be spent to better advantage in some other way. If you wish actually to sail your boats, leave out everything which is not essential to successful sailing.
Very little skill, and no instruction, is required to make the simpler forms of toy boats familiar to the small boy who lives near the water. Almost any scrap of shingle or piece of wood upon which a little mast can be raised will sail, as the small boy well knows. The difficulties begin when something more like a boat is attempted, and the first and greatest of all difficulties is that of the design, as you will discover later if you attempt scientific model yacht-building. But advanced model yacht-work requires much skill—more than can be expected of a beginner. At first, in beginning to make toy boats, copy any successful boat as nearly as you can.
After you get beyond making boats of shingles and scraps of board, you may very likely make something like Fig. 351, which is too simple to require special description; but when you begin to build regular boats you will find enough to tax your wood-working skill to the utmost. You had best begin with simple forms and not make your first attempts too large.
Fig. 351.