A Boy's Workshop: With plans and designs for in-door and out-door work

by Harry Craigin

There is a certain amount of knack required in order to saw well, but practise will improve even the most awkward workman. Always saw slowly and easily, in a sort of regular time. Be sure the wood is held firmly and doesn’t hop.

USE OF PLANES.

We have jack-planes, smoothing-planes, and block-planes. When you want to make aboard thinner, or smoother, it has got to be planed; also the sides and edges of a board are sometimes rough, or you wish to bevel them.

If the grain of the wood is perfect, there is no trouble about planing in either direction, but generally the grain runs in a slight slant or angle to the surface of the board instead of parallel to it. If, then, you start your plane and plane “against the grain” of the board, the edge of the plane will catch in ends of the grain lines, and the surface will be chipped instead of smoothed. If, however, you start it and plane “with the grain,” the ends of the grain lines are smoothed down, like the feathers on a bird’s wing when you stroke it down instead of up. So it is well to be sure about the grain before you begin to plane. Sometimes the grain is twisted and runs one way in one part of the board and another way in another part in a wavy line. Then you must vary the planing according to the surface. You would soon learn these simple things perhaps, but to know them at the outset will save you some vexation.

The smoothing-plane is much shorter than the jack-plane, and is used for smoothing smaller pieces which would be lost under the jack-plane, and also for smoothing inequalities left by the jack-plane. I have put no smoothing-plane on your list, as for ordinary work the block-plane can be used as a smoothing-plane. Thus: Turn the small thumb-screw at the front of the block-plane and press it forward; this opens the mouth of the plane so that the plane can be set more and cut a larger shaving.

Now for the proper use of the block-plane, remembering to restore it to its original set if you have been using it as a smoothing-plane. To smooth the ends of boards you need a small plane which can be set very fine; i. e., with the blade projecting very little from the face of the plane, and with the mouth so closed that the blade will not chip in cutting.

One important principle must be practically learned before you can do good work: Everything in carpentry from beginning to end must be done on the square. In planing, above all things, the square must begin every bit of work, and end it, and be used to test it, all the way along; it is just what the name implies, a try square; so perhaps the next thing explained had better be some of the uses of the square.

To give all the uses of this apparently simple tool would be to give you a thorough knowledge of geometry, and fill a volume. I will, however, give some of the more common uses:

1. In sawing across a board, if you wish to have the cut true and even, you must use the square. One edge is, of course, already planed, and from this all your lines are drawn. You wish, we will suppose, to saw three inches from the end of your board; lay the thick or handle part of the square close against the even edge of the board, three inches from the end; you will find that the blade lies flat across, the board at a right angle with the edge, and a pencil line drawn close to the blade will be a guide for cutting.