Carpentry and Woodwork

by Edwin W. Foster

Fig. 157. An example of gouge work

The other two grooves or coves were next tried. Extra care had to be exercised here to prevent taking off the ends.

To give the boy further practice, the simple pen tray shown in [Fig. 157] was sketched out, and the stock squared up.

The gouge work in this exercise was entirely beneath the surface, and to make the tool work true to the drawing, a depth gauge was made as shown at a. This was simply a straight piece of waste wood with a brad driven into it, carefully, until the head was the same distance above the surface as the depth of the groove called for in the drawing.

By inverting the gauge and running the brad head along the bottom of the groove, the depth could be gauged accurately. The wooden strip must rest on the surface at both sides of the groove, and the brad head just touches the bottom at the same time.

After the gouge work had been carried as far as possible, the groove was finished by sand-papering, first with No. 1¹⁄₂ and then with No. 0 sand-paper.

In laying out bevelled edges on a piece of this character, the same objection to the marking gauge holds as for gouged grooves. Ralph showed the boy a simple method of making a gauge for pencil lines to overcome this difficulty. He cut out a piece of white pine shaped as shown at b. The distance from the shoulder to the point of the V was equal to the width of the desired bevel or chamfer. The stock must be held in the vise, as both hands are required in the drawing of the lines. To make the width of the bevel greater, simply cut the shoulder further back with a knife, and to reduce the size, cut the V further in toward the shoulder. This is a very convenient and inexpensive device, quickly made.

A more pretentious project was tried next ([Fig. 158], a), which provides for a round ink bottle, and demands some nice chisel work. In the first pen tray the bevels had been all planed. On this second one, only three could be cut that way, as the one on the back had to be chiselled. The successive steps in the construction were as follows: