To learn to chip and file is indispensable, if for no other purpose, to be able to judge of the proficiency of others or to instruct them. Chipping and filing are purely matters of hand skill, tedious to learn, but when once acquired, are never forgotten. The use of a file is an interesting problem to study, and one of no little intricacy; in filing across a surface one inch wide, with a file twelve inches long, the pressure required at each end to guide it level may change at each stroke from nothing to twenty pounds or more; the nice sense of feeling which determines this is a matter of habit acquired by long practice. It is a wonder indeed that true surfaces can be made with a file, or even that a file can be used at all, except for rough work.
If asked for advice as to the most important object for an apprentice to aim at in beginning his fitting course, nine out of ten experienced men will say, "to do work well." As power is measured by force and velocity, work is measured by the two conditions of skill and time. The first consideration being, how well a thing may be done, and secondly, in how short a time may it be performed; the skill spent on a piece of work is the measure of its worth; if work is badly executed, it makes no difference how short the time of performance has been; this can add nothing to the value of what is done although the expense is diminished.
A learner is apt to reverse this proposition at the beginning, and place time before skill, but if he will note what passes around him, it will be seen that criticism is always first directed to the character of work performed. A manager does not ask a workman how long a time was consumed in preparing a piece of work until its character has been passed upon; in short, the quality of work is its mechanical standard, and the time consumed in preparing work is its commercial standard. A job is never properly done when the workman who performed it can see faults, and in machine fitting, as a rule, the best skill that can be applied is no more than the conditions call for; so that the first thing to be learned is to perform work well, and afterwards to perform it rapidly.
Good fitting is often not so much a question of skill as of the standard which a workman has fixed in his mind, and to which all that he does will more or less conform. If this standard is one of exactness and precision, all that is performed, whether it be filing, turning, planing, or drawing, will come to this standard. This faculty of mind can be defined no further than to say that it is an aversion to whatever is imperfect, and a love for what is exact and precise. There is no faculty which has so much to do with success in mechanical pursuits, nor is there any trait more susceptible of cultivation. Methodical exactness, reasoning, and persistence are the powers which lead to proficiency in engineering pursuits.
There is, perhaps, no more fitting conclusion to these suggestions for apprentices than a word about health and strength. It was remarked in connection with the subject of drawing, that the powers of a mechanical engineer were to be measured by his education and mental abilities, no more than by his vitality and physical strength, a proposition which it will be well for an apprentice to keep in mind.
One not accustomed to manual labour will, after commencing, find his limbs aching, his hands sore; he will feel exhausted both at the beginning and at the end of a day's work. These are not dangerous symptoms. He has only to wait until his system is built up so as to sustain this new draught upon its resources, and until nature furnishes a power of endurance, which will in the end be a source of pride, and add a score of years to life. Have plenty of sleep, plenty of plain, substantial food, keep the skin clean and active, laugh at privations, and cultivate a spirit of self-sacrifice and a pride in endurance that will court the hardest and longest efforts. An apprentice who has not the spirit and firmness to endure physical labour, and adapt himself to the conditions of a workshop, should select some pursuit of a nature less aggressive than mechanical engineering.
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