JOINERY.] BUILDING 493 and close together ; then there is put a layer of mortar mixed with chopped straw, or sometimes clay, sawdust, or small shells. The preparation given to flooring boards in superior work is planing the face, shooting the edges, and gauging to a thickness, the common fillister or stop rebate plane being used to work down to the gauge mark, from the back of every board, and about half an inch in on each edge. When a board is to be laid, it is turned on its face in the place it is to occupy, and the workman with his adze cuts away from the back over every joist down to the gauge rebate, so that on being turned over it falls exactly into its place, and takes the same level with all its fellows, which have been brought to the same gauge ; then follows the process of laying, and the result must, if the work be done well, be a perfectly even and level surface. The slight inequalities of surface which may occur are reduced with a sraoothing-plane, the brads being previously punched below the surface if the floor be face-nailed. Floors are in ordin ary cases either laid straight joint or folding, and are edge- nailed, as fig. 89, or face-nailed. According to the folding method, two boards are laid, their heading joints all on the same joist, and of course in the same straight line, and nailed at such a distance apart that the space is a little less than the aggregate width of the three, four, or five boards intended for it ; these boards are then put to their places, and, on account of the narrowness of the space left for them, they rise like an arch between its abutments. The workmen force them down by jumping upon them. Accor dingly, the boards are never soundly fixed to the joists, nor can the floor be laid with any kind of evenness or accuracy. This method should be avoided in all good work. Straight joint flooring is when every board is laid separately, or one at a time, the heading joint or joints being broken or covered regularly in every case. Dowelling is the driving- pins of wood or iron half their length, into the edge of the last laid board, the outer edge of which has been skew- nailed, their other ends running into holes prepared for them in the inner edge of the next board, in the way the head of a cask is held together, and then its outer edge is skew-nailed in the same manner, and so on. Tonguing is effected by grooving both edges of every board, and fitting thin slips and tongues into them. The boards are usually forced together by pressure as with a clamp applied to the outer edge. The nail used in face-nailing floors is called a flooring brad ; it has no head, but a mere tongue projecting on one side of the top of the nail, which is put in the direction of the grain, that it may admit of being punched in below the surface level, otherwise the superficial inequa lities could not be reduced when the floor was completed, because of the projecting heads of the nails. For side or edge nailing, however, clasp-nails, nails whose heads extend across on two of the opposite sides, are used. As boards can seldom be got long enough to do without, joints, it is usual, except in very inferior work, to join the ends with a tongued joint, as shown in fig. 89, where B B FIG. 89. Tongued Joint. FIG. 90. Forked Boards. is the joint. The etched board is first laid, and edge-nailed to the joist. In oak floors the ends are forked together sometimes, as shown at A (fig. 90), in order to render the joints less conspicuous. The joints should be kept as distant from one another as possible. In laying floors the advice of Evelyn only to taok the boards down the first year, and nail them down for good the next, is certainly the best method when it is convenient to adopt it ; but, as this is very seldom the case, we must expect the joints to open more or less as the wood has been more or less seasoned. Now, these joints always admit a considerable current of cold air ; and also, in an upper room, unless there be a counter floor, or pugging, the ceil ing below may be spoiled by spilling water, or even by washing the floor. To avoid these disagreeable results, the boards should be ploughed and a tongue inserted into each joint, according to the old practice. When the boards are narrow, they might be laid without any appearance of nails, in the same way as a dowelled floor is laid, the tongue serving the same purpose as the dowels. In this case the cross or feather tongues for the joints should be used. A new system of flooring has for some years been used in London, to which the name of " Victoria floors " has been given. A rough floor of boards, three-quarters of an inch thick, is first laid, and the rest of the joiners work fixed, and the plastering finished. When all is done, a floor formed of inch or inch and quarter plank, ripped down the middle, and consequently very little more than 5 inches wide, is laid ; the rough boarding being first covered with a layer of shavings, or old newspapers, or other waste paper. These boards are dowelled on one edge and nailed on the other, and a very sound floor is thus formed, which neither springs nor creaks. A wainscot floor can be laid well on this principle. Another early operation in joinery is the fixing of the Fixing framed grounds for the doors and windows, and for the frames - skirting (Plate XXVI. fig. 5, and woodcuts, figs. 86, 87, and 88) to which the plasterers may float their work. The skirting grounds are generally dovetailed at the angles, and are well blocked out, so that they may not vibrate on being struck, or yield to pressure when the plasterer s straight-edge passes roughly over the surface; they must also be set with the utmost truth and precision. When the floors are cut down and the grounds fixed, the joiner s operations in a building should be suspended until the plasterers have finished, or nearly so, and then the floors may be laid. By deferring this operation until that period, the workmen of the two different trades are pre vented from interrupting each other, and indeed injuring each other s work and joiners always find employment in the shop preparing, as before intimated. If the part to be fixed consists of boards jointed together, but not framed, it should be fixed so that it may shrink or swell without splitting or winding. The nature of the work will generally determine how this may be effected. Let us suppose that a plain back of a window is to be fixed. Fig. 91 is a section showing B the back of the window, A the window- sill, D the floor, C the skirting, and E the wall of the house. The back is supposed to be prepared as previously stated, and is kept straight by a dovetailed key a. Now, let the back be firmly nailed to the window-sill A, and let a narrow piece <7, with a groove and cross tongue in its upper edge, be fixed to bond timbers or plugs in the wall, the tongue being Fm. 91. Back of inserted also into a corresponding groove a Window. in the lower edge of the back B. It is obvious, that the tongue being loose, the back B may contract or expand, as a panel in a frame. In getting out skirtings, if the work be of a superior Skirtings, description, the boards should be tried up as for framing in every way except bringing to a width, which need not be done. The face edges, however, must be worked with great precision, and moulded or rebated as the case may require. Ixebating or tonguing will be perhaps necessary when the
skirting consists of more than one piece, that the different