Chapter X.
We now enter upon the actual work of the lathe, which should be comparatively easy to understand after the foregoing observations.
Your raw material having been chopped or shaved into a rough cylindrical form, you have to mount it in the lathe. I may suppose it a piece of beech for a tool-handle. If you have the cross-chuck, you should use it; if not, you may use the prong instead. In either case, centre the wood as truly as you can, so that, when the rest is fixed near it, the piece may not be much farther from it, as it revolves, in one place than another. Mind and screw down the back poppit tightly upon the lathe-bed, and also the rest, putting the latter as near the work as you can without touching it. Now set the lathe in motion,—this is tolerably easy, but to keep it in motion will probably not be easy at all. It is one of those operations which require practice, because while your leg is at work upon the treadle, your body must be firm and still, so that you feel yourself free to use the tools without giving much attention to what your leg is doing. After a while you will do this with perfect ease. The wood is, of course, to rotate towards you, and the surface will come in contact with the edge of the tool as the latter is held tightly down on the rest. Now, this is, after all, the real difficulty, for every projection striking the tool tends to jerk it off the rest, and this has to be resisted with some force. There is, however, this advantage in hand-tools, viz., that they may be held rigidly yet be allowed some slight play, according to the peculiar exigencies of the work; and at first you will save the tool by allowing it to yield slightly until the roughest part has been cut away. Afterwards, there is to be no movement except that required to make it follow the curves or level parts of the work. Do your best first to produce a cylinder, i.e., a straight, even piece of wood, as long as the required handle, and as large round as the largest part proposed to be given it. It is the best plan at first to copy a well-shaped handle, and to turn as many as you want of that size exactly to the same pattern. This will give you such an amount of practice in copying form, as will stand you in good stead in after days; for it is not easy at first to turn even two things exactly to pattern and to size.
You must not expect to be able to run your tools along the work like a professional or old hand at the lathe; you must do the best you can. Hold the handle in the right hand, and with the left grasp both rest and tool together, and you will hold it firmly. Then you ought to run it along right or left at the right speed and the right angle, but you will be unable to do so yet;—never mind. Remember the principle I have laid down as to the position and angles of cutting tools, and trust to time and perseverance to make you a good workman.
The gouge is the easiest and best tool to use at first; and you can do a fair amount of smooth work with it if you know how, although smoothing and levelling is the special work of the chisel. The gouge, however, is used for all sorts of curves and hollows, and though the actual point will only turn a groove if held still, the side of the cutting part will, if the tool is steadily advanced, turn very fair surfaces indeed. I strongly advise practice with this tool before attempting to use any other. Your early work is of little importance, and you may make up your mind to cut several pieces into shavings and chips without very grand success, even though you use a chisel; so I repeat, stick to the gouge only for some time, until you can use it towards left or right, and with either hand grasping the handle.
With the chisel, far more care is required than with the last named. It is altogether a more difficult tool to use. Its position may be described as follows, but practice alone will render its use easy. Lay it first flat on the rest as you would the gouge, and let it point upwards at a similar angle, until it also is in the position the gouge would take, ready to cut the piece of wood in the lathe, already turned to the cylindrical form by the latter tool. You will find one point or angle of the edge, the sharpest, reach the wood before the other, and will see at once that this would be liable to catch in, if the lathe were in motion—and so it would. I shall suppose that this sharpest angle is on the right-hand side as it lies flat on the rest, and against the wood. Raise that angle so that the tool lies a little edgewise on the rest instead of quite flat, when the angle of the tool that is highest on the wood will be also raised off it; the lower angle and remainder of the edge still being in contact with it. This is its proper position, with the upper angle out of contact with the work. You may turn it over so that the keenest angle is the lower one, but then you must raise the other, which is now the upper one, for under no circumstances must the one that is uppermost touch the wood. The chisel, therefore, never lies flat on the rest or on the work, but always slightly raised to clear the upper point, and in this position you have to keep it, making it descend into hollows, and rise over mouldings, and cut level places, almost without stopping an instant; and for wood, especially soft wood, the lathe is always itself to be run at a very high speed, by putting the cord on the largest part of the fly-wheel and smallest part of the pulley.
To return to the supposed tool-handle. Having turned a cylinder, begin at the ferule, which you must cut off a brass or iron tube, or, which is easier, buy by the dozen or by the pound ready cut. You will want them three-quarters of an inch for your largest tools, and about three-eighths for the smallest, with some of half an inch, and you can then bore your tool-rack exactly true with centrebits of these sizes. Turn the place down for the ferule, and take care that you make a tight fit. Gauge with the callipers first of all, and turn almost to size, then try it on once or twice until it fits exactly.
If you use the cross-chuck, you have this one great advantage—you can take out your work to put on the ferule, and replace it exactly as it was before, and it will continue to run true. As, however, the piece in the present case is but partially turned, it can be replaced with sufficient accuracy upon the prong-chuck, especially if you mark the side of the chuck, and of the piece of wood, and take care to replace them in the same relative position. You must now try with gouge and chisel to imitate the pattern handle, remembering always to work downwards from right and left into the various hollows—(you cannot cut the fibres neatly if you try to go up-hill); and where the two cuts meet in the hollows, you must do your best not to leave the least ridge or mark. You will be sure to need a little glasscloth to finish off your work, but do without it as much as possible, because it spoils the shape of mouldings, rubbing off the sharp angles, which in many cases add beauty to the work. If the piece of wood is longer than necessary, cut it off with the chisel. In any case, you must cut off a piece at the chuck end; and this being the end of the handle which you will hold in your hand, the ferule being at the end next to the back poppit, you will cut it off neatly with the chisel in finishing it to the required shape.