To plane the edges of these strips, you ought to have a bench with a vice, but there are ways and means to do without it, and one is so good that I shall speak of it here, although it necessitates a somewhat abrupt break-off in my description of the towel-rail. It is a kind of vice that is fixed to a board which is laid upon the work-bench when required.
Fig. 18.
In Fig. 18 is a drawing of one of two kinds of such vices which I will explain. This first consists of two pieces of wood (ash will be better than pine) about 9 inches long and 2 inches thick. They are cut in the shape given in the drawing, and screwed to the board, not tightly, but so as to move freely upon the screws. The board should be an inch thick to give the screws a firm hold. You can see by the figure that the tails of the pieces cross each other sometimes when in use. To allow of this, they are cut like B and C, so that one can go inside the other. Now, if you consider a little, you will understand that if we stand a strip of board between the two, and push it forward against the insides of the tails of these curiously-shaped blocks, it will make the opposite knobbed ends close nearer together, and these will grip the piece of wood, and the harder we push it forward, the more closely it will be gripped and held; but the moment we draw back the piece, the two jaws will open to let it go free. You can try first of all upon a thin piece, which can be shaped by your knife, and make a model of this vice, and then if you can’t manage to cut out such a one of thick wood, the carpenter would do it for you, and it will be handy for many purposes. If you have nothing of this kind, nor a vice to your bench, drive in two pins or pegs of wood, or two nails, a little way apart, so as to allow your strip of wood to stand upon edge between them, and drive two more a little way from these; then one at the end to form a planing stop. A tap at the sides of these nails will cause them to hold the strip edgewise, quite well enough to allow you to plane it. There are other ways, and I shall describe them by and by. In the meantime use nails, or any other plan that will answer.
Fig. 19.
Fig. 20.
I shall suppose, therefore, that one of the narrow strips is thus set on edge upon your bench ready to be planed. Grasp the handle of your plane firmly with the right hand, and lay hold of it in front of the iron with the left. Draw it back, and then send it steadily forward, pressing it downwards at the same time. Now the advantage of a long plane is, that it does not descend into the hollows of the work, but rests upon the projections, as in Fig. 19, A. A short plane would do as seen at B, and therefore would never make a long straight edge. You have two special points here to attend to. You have to plane a level line from end to end, and also keep the edges square to the sides, which is by no means easy at first. You must keep trying it with your square, as I have shown you in Fig. 20, and not rest satisfied until the handle fits close to the side of the strip, and the edge lies also close upon that of the strip anywhere along its length. I daresay you will think this of no importance in such a common thing as a pine towel-horse; but I may tell you this is the very secret of carpenter’s work, and when you can saw and plane truly, and work “to square,” you can make almost anything. It is true that the strips for the rails are not of great importance in this case, but the upright side pieces are, and if these are out of truth, the holes cut through them for the rails, which are called mortices, will be out of truth also, and you will see the towel-horse, when it is made, all twisted and awry, and nothing you can do will make it stand firm or look well. It is, in short, no use to pretend to learn carpentry unless you at once make up your mind to succeed, and therefore you must always use the square and try your work as you go on. All the difference between the usual work of carpenters, and that of boys or men who do not know how to work, consists of the squareness and good fit of what the former make. Boys never seem to trouble themselves about such things, and so you see their boxes and rabbit-hutches look twisted, and being badly fitted, they soon go to pieces.
Having planed up the sides and edges of the rails as square and true as you can, cut the other long strip in half, and square up this also, taking care that both pieces are alike and both truly worked. If your bench is sufficiently long to take the whole strip, plane it up before you cut it across, and you will be sure to have the sides of your towel-rail equal in size. You have now to make your first essay in cutting mortices. Follow these directions, and you will not fail. I shall not limit the description to these special mortices, but give you general directions.