Long screws should be driven through the end-strips and into the ends of the shelves to hold them firmly in place. To cover the screw-heads and lend them the appearance of being large, wrought-headed nails, false heads should be made from scraps of thick sheet-lead and attached to the wood with slim, steel-wire nails. To make these heads, disks three-quarters of an inch in diameter are cut from sheet-lead with a cold-chisel and mallet, the work being imposed on the upturned face of an old flat-iron. With a light hammer the edges are beaten to give them the appearance of anvil-made nails, such as were used years ago in decorations, and on antique chests, doors, leather-covered furniture, and walls laid in tooled leather. These nails were hand-made, and crude but artistic in appearance; they are always effective when used in connection with leather and wood-work.
Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4.
The ornament under the lower shelf of the rack is drawn on the bare wood, and tinted in colors to match the natural flowers and leaves. Use oil-paints thinned slightly with turpentine, so as to give the appearance of a stain or dye rather than of an opaque color. All the wood-work is then stained some desired shade, and the outline of the ornament is either burned pyrographically or lined with dark-brown paint in imitation of a burned line. A bluish-gray is a pretty color for this wall-rack, and it can be made by thinning Payne’s gray and adding a small proportion of any good blue, such as cobalt, ultramarine, or cerulean. The stain should be applied thin, with a flat brush, and then partially wiped off with a soft rag. When dry, a coat or two of shellac will give a lustre to the stain, hold the color, and render an egg-shell gloss to the wood-work. (See Chapter XII. for instruction in Pyrography.)
A Book-nest
A book-nest of quaint shape is shown in Fig. 4. It is formed of a back-board, two shelves, three brackets, and two slats that connect the shelves at the ends. This is a small piece of furniture and is intended to fill a small space; it should be from eighteen to twenty-four inches long. The shelves should be ten inches apart, and the under side of the lower one is supported by a long bracket, at the middle of which small corner shelves are arranged, as shown in the illustration. Holes may be made in these brackets, through which the stems of pipes can be inserted. The curved parts of the wall-plate are cut with a compass-saw and finished off with a wood-file.
It is not necessary that this home-made furniture should be absolutely smooth or the lines perfectly straight. A slight variation from the manner in which shop-made furniture is constructed adds to the effectiveness of these book-racks and holders, and gives them the rough-and-ready artistic appearance that is characteristic of the “mission” and other popular styles of modern craftsmanship.
Another Book-rack
A simple arrangement of shelves in the form of a book-rack is shown in Fig. 5. Where there is room to accommodate a small standing receptacle of this nature, this design will be found both useful and ornamental.
The top shelf is about forty-two inches high from the floor, and in width the rack may be made to fill the available space, say from two to four feet. The corner-posts are of wood two inches square, and where the shelves are attached portions of the wood are cut away, as shown in Fig. 6. The shelf corners are cut out in such a manner that half an inch of the shelf edge enters the post, where it is held in place by means of glue and screws.