British Manufacturing Industries: Pottery, Glass and Silicates, Furniture and Woodwork.

by Léon Arnoux; Frederick Settle Barff; John Hungerford Pollen

Mouldings for panelling, cornices, skirtings, &c., are cut by revolving cutters or chisels, filed to any desired shape and case-hardened. They are set in a perpendicular axle and cut horizontally, the wood being firmly pressed against the tool. The workman can gear the cutter or reverse the action, so as to make a neat finish to his work.

Formerly all such work was done with a plane, cut to the required figure, and the finishings of lines of moulding had to be carved with the hand.

Mortising is done by a revolving boring tool, against which the wood to be mortised is moved by a gradual action, from side to side, and backwards and forwards, till the exact depth and width are bored out; tenons fitting these cavities are cut in another lathe, also by mechanical action.

Turning lathes.—The legs of chairs and tables are made in lathes, the general outline being obtained by turning in the simple form. Portions of the legs are sometimes squared, and the square faces must be evenly graduated. These parts are cut as follows: the lathe and the leg in it are kept at rest, and a revolving tool—in fact, a small lathe with a perpendicular cutter in it, connected by a leather band with a spindle overhead—set in motion by the steam-engine. The workman passes this cutter carefully down the four surfaces of the portions to be squared, cutting to a given depth all down, but never losing the angle outlines originally found by the first turning. When flutings have to be cut down the legs, whether they are round or square, this is done by using a revolving cutter set with horizontal action, which passes carefully along at one level, and is geared by the joiner so as to graduate the width of each fluting, as it descends, if the diminishing size of the support or leg requires it.

Bars of chairs, edges of shelves, the stretchers (or connecting bars) under some kinds of tables, are cut into carved or other shapes by an endless band saw revolving on two rollers. The workman passes his wood along an iron table against the saw, gearing the former according to the pattern drawn on the surface.

Fretwork is done with a still finer hair or watch-spring saw, of which one end can be detached from the holder and passed through a small hole in the piece of wood where the piercing is to be cut out by the saw. This could not be done by an endless saw, which can only be used to shape out edges. The best saws of this description are made by Perin, in Paris.

Watch-spring saws strained in frames have long been in use. In the steam-engine it is the wood only that is moved, and as it rests on a steady table, it gives the workman a great advantage, and should enable him to shape out his design with a delicacy only attainable with greater difficulty by the old method.

The process of mitreing pieces of moulding, where they meet at an angle at a corner, is done by machinery in some houses. In the works of Messrs. Jackson and Graham, this is done by setting the pieces in a metal T square. They are carefully cut by hand, and as each piece is set in a frame geared to the angle required, and under the hand of an experienced workman, no inaccuracies are likely to occur. In cabinet-making and joinery of all kinds, the number of angles round which mouldings have to pass is very great, as anyone will see who is at the pains to notice the construction of furniture of the most ordinary kind. Any staring or opening of an oblique joint is destructive of the effect of such workmanship, as it is of the strength of the joint which is glued together, and requires absolute contact of the parts to be joined.

Much work, such as chair rails, table legs, balusters for little galleries or on a large scale, is turned and cut in the steam lathe by hand, using steam power only to turn it.

Joinery.—The pieces of wood thus prepared are made up in many different combinations. This is the work of the joiner. In the joiners' shop of Messrs. Jackson and Graham, for instance, several benches were shown to me occupied by lengths of wall-panelling in ebony, some of the work being intended to cover the wall of a staircase; it was therefore framed in sloping lines. Each panel was a rhomboid, and none of the sides or mouldings were at right angles to each other. The mouldings had several fine strings, ovaloes, &c., all specially designed by the architect of the house—as the fittings of well-furnished houses should be. For these, special cutters had been made and fitted to the steam-moulding machine. To show the back of the panelling, the workmen turned it over. Instead of each panel being held in a groove provided in the stiles and rails, a rebate only has been cut in the frame, and the panel fits into it from the back (as the stretcher of a picture fits into a picture-frame), while iron buttons screwed into the frame pieces hold the panels firmly in their places. The object of this is to allow for the contraction of the wood with the alterations of temperature. With some woods, however well seasoned, this provision is requisite, and it is the more necessary, when more than one material is employed. In using ebony over large surfaces, it is found that the lengths required for the continuous rails cannot be procured free from knots or faults; and particular kinds of wood (pear and other material) are stained and prepared, to supplement the ebony in these instances.