A Manual of Mending and Repairing; With Diagrams

by Charles Godfrey Leland

Holes or defects in wood—for example, in American shingle roofs or the clap-boarded sides of houses—can often be more cheaply and readily repaired with shavings and glue (into which oil is infused) than by any other means. And it may be observed that such a coating of shavings and glue, laid on to a new roof, is the cheapest and most effective protector against rain or sun or frost.

In certain work wood-shavings can be advantageously combined with paper to give a solid, smooth surface and firm body. Here the paper-paste, with or without sawdust, is first forced into the cavities, and the shavings superadded.

Shavings and glue are excellent for the temporary repair of boats, and if the mending be properly executed, it will be as durable as the original wood. It would be an easy matter indeed to make a canoe entirely of shavings and glue. If the hand-roller be well used and thoroughly applied, the result will be a very firm fabric.

Pattern to be cut out of Shavings and applied with Glue to a Panel.

It may be worth knowing in the wilderness, that where a backwoodsman has a plane (and he can always make one if he has a chisel, which, again, can be made out of a knife-blade) he can make shavings, and with these and some kind of binder—even clay—he can lay a dry, hard floor, when perhaps boards are not to be obtained. The substratum may be of beaten clay or stone. If of sufficient thickness and well rolled, such a floor as this would be impervious to damp.

Any surface can be very well veneered with shavings and glue. Smooth the surface by pressure or rolling, and when dry glass-paper it. Veneers are often not to be had; shavings may be got in every carpenter’s shop.

Not only very strong and elastic canes, but even bows of a superior quality, can be made of shavings. The Indians in Pacific America make the latter by pasting and pressing one shaving on another with great care. It may be understood that where the grain, as in a piece of wood, runs altogether in one way, it will split with the grain. But where it is not uniform or connected, and is very powerfully incorporated by pressure with a good binder, we may easily have a very elastic and tough fabric, not so likely to split as wood. Thus we can make from hickory shavings a wood less liable to warp or split than the original wood itself.

Wood-shavings and glue are admirably adapted to repair broken boxes or any other articles of wood, especially for smoothing over roughly mended surfaces and covering knot-holes or other defects. In all cases when possible use the roller, and when pasting one piece on the other cross the grains.

Musical instruments, such as guitars, violins, and mandolins, are very easily repaired with shavings and glue; and this is, indeed, in many cases, the very best means of reparation, since, while a piece of wood may or may not injure the tone, the shavings always give a good vibration. And where it is quite beyond the power of any ordinary amateur, say a lady, to set in a piece of wood or apply one, or to get it of a proper thickness, anybody with care can paste on thin shavings—the thinner the better—till the defect is repaired. In many cases parchment or paper will answer just as well, and I have myself thus perfectly mended violins which were apparently beyond all bettering, and got to the stage of lasciate ogni speranza, or hopelessness.