Fig. 5
An easy way to make the sliding part of the lower right-hand running wheel, [Plate 22], is to cut out with bit and chisel a narrow slot thru the handle, wide enough for two screws, with washers on them, which screw into the block holding the flag.
RUNNING WHEEL — Plate 22
[RATTLE—][Plate 23].
This is a noisy toy and will make a safe substitute for fire-crackers on the Fourth of July. Some of the dimensions may be changed to suit such a spool as can be obtained. It should be a rather deep spool, that is, one that held a lot of thread.
The noise is made by the spring snapping off the slats in the spool as the head of the rattle is swung round and round. Draw lines across one end of the spool to divide it into eight equal parts. Place the spool endwise in the vise and, with the back-saw, cut eight notches a little more than 1/16" wide straight towards the opposite side of the spool. By sawing twice at each notch, the wood which remains can easily be removed with the saw held slanting. There are several ways of making the eight little slats which fit into these notches; the easiest, perhaps, is to split them from a block (1-5/8" × 1-1/2" × 5/16") of a straight-grained wood, and plane them on the jig described at the foot of [page 19]. Glue them in the notches. Plane the back and the spring this same way. Square both ends of the back but do not plane it quite to width until it is glued and nailed in place. In the two sides, bore a 5/16" hole for the dowel, 3/4" from the end and a little over 3/4" from the back edge. (Holes are always located by their centers.) This dowel must fit tightly in the handle and spool, and loosely in the two sides. Plane the spring thinner at the narrow end. It should be narrow enough and its corners cut off enough so as not to touch the spool when it snaps. The handle might well be octagonal rather than round.