HOW WORK IS LAID OUT
Concrete Examples of Work.—A concrete example of doing any work is more valuable than an abstract statement. For this purpose I shall direct the building of a common table with a drawer in it and show how the work is done in detail.
For convenience let us adopt the Mission style, with a top 36" × 42" and the height 30". The legs should be 2" × 2" and the top 1", dressed. The material should be of hard wood with natural finish, or, what is better still, a soft wood, like birch, which may be stained a dark brown, as the Mission style is more effective in dark than in light woods.
Fig. 27.
Framework.—As we now know the sizes, the first thing is to build the framework. The legs should be dressed square and smoothed down with the fore plane to make them perfectly straight. Now, lay out two mortises at the upper end of each leg. Follow the illustrations to see how this is done.
Laying Out the Legs.—Fig. 27 shows a leg with square cross marks (A) at each end. These marks indicate the finished length of the leg. You will also see crosses on two sides. These indicate what is called the "work sides." The work sides are selected because they are the finest surfaces on the leg.
| Fig. 28. | Fig. 29. |
The Length of the Mortises.—Then take a small try square (Fig. 28) and add two cross lines (B, C) on each of the inner surfaces, the second line (B) one-half inch from the finish line (A), and the other line (C) seven inches down from the line (A). The side facing boards, hereafter described, are seven inches wide.