The Practical Boy.
By Joseph H. Adams.
Second Paper
Fitting Up a Boy’s Room
Tools.
Before proceeding further it will be well to say a word about the tools a boy should have. These should be the same as carpenters use, but they may be smaller and not so cumbersome to handle. Tools in a chest, and sold at the toy-store, are not to be relied on for carpentry work, as they are usually dull and made of soft, steel that will not hold an edge.
Good tools can be had at nearly every hardware store or general store in the country.
For ordinary work you will require a good rip and crosscut saw, with twenty and twenty-four inch blades respectively, a claw-hammer and a smaller one, a wooden mallet for chisels and to knock the lap-joints of wood together, a jack and a smoothing plane, a compass-saw, a brace and several sizes of bits ranging from a quarter to one inch in diameter, a draw-knife, square, awls, pliers, rule, several chisels, a screw-driver, and a few other tools that will become useful at times, but which can be added as they are required,
It is hardly necessary to give illustrations of the various tools in a carpentry outfit, as nearly every boy is familiar with their appearance and readily learns their names from a carpenter.
It is a difficult thing to instruct a boy by any written description how to use tools, and rather than to attempt it I should advise the young workman to watch a carpenter at work.
General Remarks.
Some very good results have been accomplished by amateur decorators, designers, and carpenters with their own handicraft.
The color-schemes, designs, and arrangement that may be carried out in fitting up a boy’s room are almost without limit, and hundreds of different ideas could be worked out, depending upon the shape and location of the room, Diagrams and illustrations that the boys can easily follow of a few suggested articles are given in these pages, together with a clear description of sizes, materials, and workmanship that should be a great help to the boy decorator and craftsman.
In the selection of woods from which to build furniture, and the material for upholstering chairs, settees, and stools, the products of the locality in which the boy lives must be taken into consideration, Some States produce pine, white-wood (cottonwood), poplar, or cypress, that can be worked easily; while in others spruce, hemlock, maple, and fir will be easier to obtain; and in the far West gum-wood, red-wood, cedar, and cypress are the least expensive. The cost of the wood is a matter to be considered, and often a more artistic result can be had by using an inexpensive wood.
Some woods have an open and broad grain that, if carefully filled and varnished over, will give a very pleasing effect. Chestnut, butternut, quartered oak and ash have this quality, and all of them are adapted to furniture construction and room trimmings.
For many of the chairs and other furniture, spruce, apple-wood, and cypress will render good results, and all of them have a pretty grain when stained, wiped, and varnished. Ash is harder and will make good solid furniture; and if it will not be found too difficult to work, it will prove a very satisfactory and serviceable wood for chairs, tables, benches, and other pieces of furniture that are subjected to hard usage. In the construction of the various pieces of furniture illustrated, the simple rules of carpentry only are to be followed; and in making all of this furniture only the lap, mortise-and-tenon, and155
