Another design for a bracket is illustrated in Fig. 5; and in Fig. 6 a T is shown that may be used for a bracket or a wall-hanger, along the top edge of which small hooks may be arranged to hold a shoe-horn, button-hooks, scissors, and other small bedroom accessories.
Wood-turning
The common examples of wood-turning with which a boy is most familiar are tops, balls, bats, dumb-bells, Indian clubs, broom-handles, and spools. All of these objects are made in a lathe, and this is the self-same machine that has been in use for centuries, with but few modifications. Like the potter’s wheel, it is simplicity itself and needs no improvement.
The object of a lathe is to cause a piece of wood or other material to revolve from end to end, so that when a chisel or other sharp-edged tool is held against the moving surface it will cut away that part of the material at which the tool is directed.
The boy who lives near a wood-working establishment, or mill, can gain more knowledge in watching a wood-turner at work for half an hour than he can learn from reading a book on the subject for many days. It is a simple craft, but a firm hand and a true cut are the important factors in making a boy a master of the lathe.
Once the knowledge is gained, however, it is an easy matter to turn all sorts of objects.
A simple lathe may be made from a small table, a grindstone, a trunk-strap, and several small parts that are easily gotten together. Read how in his boyhood days the author constructed a small lathe.
Between the legs of a table two bars were nailed across for supports to the shaft, which was made of oak and measured three feet long and one inch square. This just fitted the hole in a grindstone that was used for the balance-wheel. Six inches from the ends of the shaft the corners were cut away to form bearings on the cross-bars, which were hollowed out to receive it. A leather strap was nailed over to keep it in position. The grindstone was next placed on the shaft, near one end, between the bearings, and wedged. Over it two brackets, four inches high, were screwed in position on the table top, six inches apart, forming a support for a shaft of a small wheel or pulley made of wood. In the end of an ash shaft, one inch square and eight inches long, were three sharp points made by driving in nails without heads, the projecting ends being filed to points; these, forced against the block, held one end firmly enough to turn. The places where the bearings came were cut in the form of a cylinder three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and corresponding places were hollowed in the supports (as shown at Fig. 8) to receive it, a small piece of wood being screwed on over each, after the shaft and wheel were put in position.
A belt was made of an old trunk-strap, passed round the grindstone and through two holes in the table over the little wheel, causing the latter to revolve very rapidly when the former was turned. This was done by a treadle put in the following manner: Two cranks were made (A in Fig. 7) by a blacksmith and attached to the ends of the long shaft. They were three inches long and had a knob on the end of the handle to prevent the connecting-rods from slipping off. The latter were of hard-wood, with a half-inch hole bored through near one end. They were then split six inches, allowing them to be placed on the handles. A screw was then put in to secure them, the lower ends being connected with a treadle made as in Fig. 7.
