The Workshop
Just a room, any room, that will afford sufficient light for your work, that is all you need for a beginning. Having the room you have a place for your first tool, if it is necessary to collect them one at a time, and it is much better to do that than to buy a cheap tool-chest. When you have one tool make a place for it and keep it in its place. A hammer, a saw, a hatchet, a sharp knife, a screw-driver, a gimlet, and a rule are the first tools you will need. The writer once made a very good mantel-board, cleated at the ends with rounded corners, which has stood the heating and drying process of many winters over an open fire, without warping, and her tools were simply a hatchet, a meat-saw, and a pocket knife. Of course, the work would have been much easier and more enjoyable had she possessed the proper tools, but this example serves to show how few tools are absolutely necessary. A plane, a chisel, and an auger-bit and brace will be needed later; after that a gouge, a try-square, and a file. These you may collect by degrees as your work grows more ambitious and you feel the need of them. Hooks, nails, tacks, and screws can be bought as required.
Have a hook for your saw and hang it up, lay your plane on its side, make a rack for your small tools something like Fig. 1, and have a box for your shavings. A shelf on which to keep your boxes of tacks and other small articles is indispensable; each of these boxes should be labelled and kept in its place; in fact, to get the full enjoyment from your workshop you must keep it in order and the tools just where you may always expect to find them.
What the Tools are for and How to Use Them
The Hammer.—A carpenter’s hammer is what you want, not a tack hammer, and it should be of medium weight. You are to use it in driving nails, in hammering things into place and in various ways not injurious to the hammer. The manner in which you hold this tool will make all the difference in the way you drive a nail. The hammer should be taken by the end of the handle and the head brought down squarely on the nail-head, otherwise the nail will slant to one side or perhaps bend.
Fig. 1.
The Saw.—The panel-saw is best suited to ordinary work, one having about ten teeth to the inch. Finer saws make a smoother cut, and you will probably find use for several, but one is enough to begin with. The saw is used for cutting large pieces of wood and for cutting across grain, and special saws serve for special purposes, such as sawing of curves and cutting out keyholes. With pencil and rule draw the line you wish your saw to follow. Stand above your work so that you may see the pencil line; hold the saw firmly in the right hand and with the left grasp the board, allowing your thumb to rest on the saw, above the teeth. This is to help guide the saw and to prevent cutting your hand. Take light, short strokes at first, then longer ones, using a little more force, and keep your saw at right angles with the board. If your material is large and heavy place it across two wooden horses, if light or small it is best to use a mitre-box.
The Hatchet.—You will find a good medium-sized hatchet with a sharp edge very useful, for cutting away or trimming, but it must be used with care, for to chop too vigorously will frequently split the wood. See that your hatchet does not follow the grain of the wood unless the grain runs in the direction you wish your cut to take.
The Knife.—Not a dainty pearl-handled pocket-knife but a strong, well-made, sharp-bladed jack-knife, large enough for all kinds of whittling. The knife is for fine cutting that cannot be done with the hatchet, and when one learns to whittle out various small articles much has been accomplished.