Part 5

It may be constructed of nicely-selected pine, for this is easily obtained, is cheap, and any little mistake will not entail too much expense if the work has to be done again, and also it is easily worked, and takes a beautiful golden color when “filled,” and finished with shellac. Pains must be taken not to mar the wood with tool-marks. To make a nice piece of work, you will not use any nails, but put the case together with dowels, screws, and glue.

Now look over the drawings together. _Sketch No. 1_ shows the completed case as it should look when finished and in place. The first section, _A_, (_Sketch No. 2_) is a fair-sized box with lifting cover, and a shelf beneath. This will be found handy for many odds and ends of boyish treasures too cumbersome to be stored away in drawers and boxes. _Section B_ contains the specimen, or butterfly case, with a row of small drawers below, these drawers being handy receptacles for marbles, tops, twine, or like odds and ends that make a troublesome litter when thrown together in a large drawer. Two large drawers below these, and the shelf, will find their uses, without doubt. _Section C_ has a couple of shelves for books, with storage room for bats, hockey sticks, etc., below; and in one corner is a small box large enough to hold two or three balls; outside of this, as the other plans will show, is a receptacle for a foot-ball, made of bent wire. This, if not a desirable addition, may be left off.

Having looked our case over in a general way, let us now go into the details of construction and finish. In _Sketch No. 2_ will be found all the general measurements. The figuring and lettering on the _Detail Sketch_ all refer to this drawing. We will first get out the stock for the side-pieces of the various sections, four in number, and two of them—those belonging to _Section B_—of exactly the same size and shape. These should be of one and one fourth inch stock, and of the dimensions given in _Detail Sketch No. 3_. Mark out carefully the simple outline indicated for each piece, using a piece of charcoal, so the line may be easily wiped out and corrected if unsatisfactory. Go over the corrected outline with a soft pencil to preserve them, and then saw them out. This must be done with care, to keep the edges even and true, using either a draw tool or small saw on the finer outlines.

The half-trefoil on side of _Section A_ at the bottom should be drawn with a compass, or scribing tool, and cut with a hand scroll-saw; and the simple pattern on the sides should first be marked out with a compass, the larger hole carefully cut out with a sharp tool to the depth of one fourth inch. The smaller holes, surrounding it, bore out to about the same depth with a small auger-bit. The straight line decoration on sides of _Sections B_ and _C_ are first neatly lined with a pencil, and then cut with a sharp tool, one fourth inch wide, and about as deep. The cover of _Section A_ should be of seven eighths inch stock, and should project fully an inch over the side and front. The back piece, on which the hinges are fastened, should be two and one half inches wide. This will allow ample room for the back board, and give to the cover, when open, sufficient slant to lean easily against the wall. This piece should be well glued and doweled into place, and two neat brass hinges set in, to hold the cover. The bottom of box and bottom shelf of this same section are of same thickness as top, firmly doweled and glued into place. The front panel is of same thickness, and cut to fit exactly into place, doweled and glued. The small jig-saw patterns at bottom of _Sketches No. 8_, _9_, _10_, are cut from one half inch stock, and glued on firmly. _Section A_ is now ready to attach to the side piece of _Section B_. This must be neatly and firmly done with dowels and glue.

In _Section B_ first get out the top, centre and bottom shelves, as well as the narrow strip division for the drawers; these last need not run back more than three inches, excepting for the row of small drawers. This division should run entirely from front to back, the same as the shelves. The thickness of all the shelving is the same throughout. Having framed together our sides with the centre and bottom shelves, and drawer partitions, next place the two narrow uprights, on which the doors are to be hung, in position. These are one half inch wide and firmly doweled and glued into sides; the doors are hung with simple brass hinges and made to lap one over the other on one fourth inch rebate, and shutting against an upright post about three fourths inch square. Glue a strip one inch wide and one half inch thick around the sides and back piece, for the top to rest upon and be fastened to, by one fourth inch dowels, and glued; this strip should, for further security, be fastened by a number of small screws. Space will not allow the details of construction of drawers; but if the lad will look at any well-made drawer, he will easily find out for himself.

We have already got out the side for the book shelves and bat holder, _Section C_, and have only to dowel and glue shelves firmly into place, put the back boards in position, having got them out the size and shape shown by _Sketches 7 and 8_.

Now our case is well framed together and it only remains for us to finish various small details. After fitting a one fourth inch shelf into the specimen case midway, the next move is to line the whole of the specimen case and the two long drawers beneath with thin, flat pieces of cork about one eighth inch in thickness. First apply to the whole surface to be covered, a thin coating of hot glue, fitting in the piece of cork while the glue is hot; rub well into place, and apply an even pressure, to be left until the glue is thoroughly “set;” when this is done cover all the cork with nice white paper, applied with flour paste. Frame up the door as shown in _Sketch No. 12_, of one half inch stock, setting the glass in from the front into a narrow rebate. Then glue a narrow moulding on the outside to prevent the glass from falling out. Hang the door with brass hinges and fit a small lock into place; then dowel neatly into place the under brackets, _Nos. 9_, _10_, _11_, in their respective positions, place pretty brass pulls on all the drawers, and the case is nearly ready for finishing.

In the book case _Section 6_, the simplest way of arranging the shelves is to bore a row of one fourth inch holes front and back and at both sides, and fit little pegs into these for two shelves to rest on. These may be raised or lowered by changing the positions of the pegs. Make a little box as shown of one fourth inch stock, fasten this neatly with small screws into the left-hand upper corner of the bat holder under the lower shelf; this is to hold the base and hockey balls. The back of the case may be made of narrow strips of one fourth inch sheathing, held in by screws.

Fill the woodwork thoroughly with a good filler; Wheeler’s is good. After it is wholly dry, go over the case with a good coat of white shellac, and when dry, rub it down carefully with powdered pummice stone, oil and emery cloth. A second coat of shellac carefully rubbed down, will result in a rich golden brown hue, that will improve with age. This case, when complete, will cover a small space of four feet nine inches by three feet three inches.

In buying stock, select the best pine for all portions that will show. Get the stock well planed and smooth it down.

If made by a carpenter, twenty-five dollars would be the smallest payable price for a good job, so that the price named is not at all excessive for a really good thing.

This case being somewhat elaborate is intended both in design and instructions here given, for those boys who have a fair knowledge of construction, and some ideas as to the best way to set about it; and it must be borne in mind although pine is soft and easily worked, it is also easily soiled and injured by tool marks more readily than the harder woods.

The general schedule of material and cost given below will be found useful in buying.

SCHEDULE OF COSTS, ETC.

50 feet, ⅞ inch pine, } at 6c per foot, $4.50 25 " ½ " } Sawing, if done at a mill, about 1.50 Finishing and filling the wood in four coats, about 1 quart of shellac, etc., 1.50 Hardware, locks, hinges, drawers, pulls, etc., etc., 1.50 Glass for doors, .50 Cork, paper, glue, etc., about 1.50 ------ Total, $11.00

XIV.—HOW TO BUILD A PORTABLE WOODEN TENT.

WOODEN tents such as I am about to describe, are in use by the contractors who are building the western extensions of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway in Colorado. There are no towns there ahead of the railway, and it is necessary to provide sleeping-quarters, provisions and eating-houses, for the engineers and road-makers. It is therefore needful to have a style of building which can be put up and taken down easily, and, above all, which shall be capable of transportation over the frightful mountain roads. The result, it seems to me, might be useful to bevies of boys, to schoolmasters and pupils, and to families who camp out every summer for some considerable time, and really need to take to the woods a house somewhat better than a cloth tent, where they can live in warmth and comfort, and which shall be a cosey headquarters for storing supplies, and to which they may return. My object now is in these papers to instruct our young home carpenters how during their winter leisure to get one of these comfortable wooden tents in complete readiness for summer transportation. It can be done very cheaply; if you can improve on it, so much the better. For my part, I have never seen or heard of the like anywhere else, though I believe that circus sideshows sometimes have a far more cumbersome arrangement answering the same purpose.

Boys might club together, not only to own such a portable house in common, but to build it—a jolly way of spending Saturdays in some great wagon-house or tool-chamber where there is a big workbench and a good tool-chest.

This movable house consists wholly of wood except the roof, which is canvas, and the floor, which is dirt, unless you choose to plank it. It may be made of any size you see fit, it only being necessary that all the parts are adjusted to the scale decided upon. The dimensions I give, however, are measured upon a plan twelve feet square, because that happened to be the actual size of the one nearest to me. The railway men generally join from two to half a dozen of these together, end to end, making a long and commodious building. A half-dozen congenial families could do the same, insuring endless good times in the forest solitudes. One twelve-foot length is then known as a “section.” If you would rather have an oblong figure, make your ends shorter and reduce the length of your rafters; or, if you don’t like the pretty low pitch of the roof which my measurements imply, lengthen your uprights and rafters to suit your own ideas of the right angle.

Now for my details:

The walls of your tent-house, six feet in height, are to be made of inch-thick matched flooring twelve feet long. They should be No. 1 pine, best quality. Fasten these firmly together, to the width of six feet, by three dressed cleats, six inches wide, one at each end and one in the middle, and do this on both sides. Make three of these platforms, or walls, which will furnish three sides of your house. For the fourth side make a similar platform nine feet in length, filling out the remaining three feet with a door.

This door swings _out_, and the hinges should be very strong, preferably of the kind used on barn doors, so that it can be lifted off its hanging with ease, and so that the long shaft of the hinge will act as a support to prevent undue sagging. An arrangement must be made to lock this door. It can easily be secured on the inside by a bolt, and outwardly by hasp and padlock.

There remain, now, the peaks or gables at the ends, to be provided for. Many of the railway men get their roof canvas sufficiently large to come down and cover this, but I think a better plan would be to make two triangular platforms of boards, fitted to your peak, cleating them together just like the lower walls. Then place about four flat staples in the outside of your end walls, and let iron hasps bolted to the lower edge of your peak boards drop into them. This would hold the bottom of the peak and the top of the end wall squarely together. In addition to this a couple of bolts should pass through the upright and be secured by nuts, so as easily to be unscrewed. (_See fig. 14._) There should be no middle cleat on the inside of the gable. The general character of these walls appears in several of the illustrations, but the cleating is shown in _fig. 1_. Screws should be used throughout instead of nails. The woodwork remaining to be shaped, consists of the uprights, or centre-poles at each end, the ridgepole, rafters and braces.

The two uprights in my model were 8 feet and 9 inches in height; a greater length would add pitch to the roof. These uprights should be made of clear, firm stuff, 4 inches by 2, and should be thickened at their lower ends by adding pieces of similar size, as shown in _figures_ 2 and 4. This upright stands inside of the wall, and edge-wise. Into its upper inner edge must be set two iron “eyes” having an inner diameter of three quarters of an inch. (_See fig. 3_). The uppermost of these is placed about two inches from the top of the stick, and the second six inches below. These eyes should pass clear through the timber and be held by nuts on the other side. Six feet from the bottom of the upright, a hooked bolt should be passed through the timber, the hook facing outwardly, and having enough space between it and the wood to allow the wall to come between. Its purpose is to hold the end wall snugly to the upright: therefore it must be loose enough so that it can be turned up while the wall is being put into position, and then turned down to clamp it firmly, as in _figure 4_.

Having made both uprights alike, you now turn your attention to the ridgepole. This ought to be somewhat heavier than the uprights, two by six scantling being none too strong for the strain which the weight of your canvas and an occasional gale of wind will put upon it. It is twelve feet long, of course, and six inches from each end will have an iron pin 18 inches in length driven through from its upper side, intended to go through the eyes at the top of the uprights. This is shown in _fig. 5_.

On each side of this ridgepole screw in four stout staples or eyes, one at three inches from each end, and the others at equal distances between; to these the rafters are to be attached. (_See figs. 3 and 5._) Similar staples must be placed an inch below the upper inside edge of the side walls to contain the irons at the lower end of the rafters, as in _fig. 6_; of course, therefore, it is necessary that the staples in the walls should fall exactly opposite those on the ridgepole.

The rafters themselves, eight in number, may be made of the same sized stuff as the uprights, or lighter, if a tough wood like elm or ash is used instead of pine; and each will be 7 feet and 4 inches long unless you want a pretty steep roof, in which case you must lengthen them somewhat. To the underside of the upper end is fastened a strong curved hook, which hangs in the staples on the ridgepole (_fig. 5_); while to the lower end is fastened a pointed iron three inches long, and set at such an angle that it will stand vertical in the eye on the wall (_see fig. 6 next paper_) when the rafter is in place.

XV.—HOW TO BUILD A WOODEN TENT. (_Continued._)

THE braces are intended to serve the same purpose as the guy-ropes of the ordinary wall tent, and are three in number on each side. They consist of stout sticks (two by four inches is a good size) long enough to reach the ground from the top of the wall (five and one half feet in the present case) at an angle of forty-five degrees. At the upper end, underneath, which is beveled to stand flat against the face of the wall, the brace is armed with a strong hook. This hook sets into an eye inserted into the top of the outside cleat, just as the rafters are hooked to the ridgepole. At the lower end, which also is beveled off to fit the ground, is fastened a large ringbolt. This is on the upper side, so that when the brace is in position, the ring lies flat on the ground beyond it, and through it is driven a barbed pin of iron. These braces not only hold the wall from sagging out, but equally prevent it from pulling in, which is just as great a danger. How they are arranged is seen at a glance in _fig. 7_.

There is also another brace which goes across from the corner of the side wall over the doorway to the upright, where it is hooked into an eye placed six feet above the ground. This cross-brace forms a lintel to the door, and serves to make solid the otherwise somewhat shaky end of the right-hand siding.

Now comes the setting up and roofing; but before you can do that you must provide fastenings at the corners of your walls. I have reserved this for the last, since it is the most difficult bit of mechanism.

Go to a blacksmith and have him forge for you six pieces of iron of the shape shown in _fig. 8_, each about an inch and a half wide, and an eighth of an inch thick; the shafts, or straight ends of three of them, should measure six inches from the point marked _a_, while the shafts of the others should be nine inches in length, the elbow being alike in both cases. In the shaft should be punched two holes big enough to pass stout bolts through; but in both sizes these holes should be within six inches from the straight end. Having provided yourself with these bent irons, bolt one of the _short size_ upon each end of the _outside_ of the _rear_ wall of your house six inches from the lower border, and in such a way that the bent end which is to be turned _upward_, shall project beyond the end of the wall just enough to leave a space of a quarter of an inch between the inside of the curve and the edge of the cleat to which it is bolted. Draw the nuts on your bolts very tight. Now take your remaining short one, and put it upon the lower corner of your front wall, so that its lower edge shall be just seven inches from the bottom of the wall, and with the elbow projecting as before, but _turned down_.

You have now left your three longer pieces of iron. One of these must be placed on the lower rear end of your right-hand side-wall (as you face the door) at seven and one half inches above the bottom, and with the elbow turned _down_. The other two go on opposite ends of the left-hand wall, that at the rear end turned _down_, and that in front turned _up_, the former seven and one half, the latter six inches above the bottom edge. But _all these long ones must project_ three and one quarter _inches_, because they must reach past the edge of the adjoining wall, as you will see when you stand the walls up; the edge of the rear flush with face of the sidings, and lock them together, as shown in _fig. 9_.

Though I have seen the same arrangement at the top, yet a better way is as follows: (_Figs. 10, 11 and 12._)

Have your blacksmith make three flat pieces of iron, each six and one half inches in length, having a closed loop turned up at the end, which carries a link six inches long, as in _fig. 10_. Bolt this piece of iron near the upper corner of each of the end walls—that is, above each of the _short_ hooks, allowing the loop in which the link hangs, _and no more_, to project. Get at the same time three squarely bent hooks of round iron (_fig. 11_), with a thread and nut at the long end, and the bent-up point no longer than the inner diameter of the link, lengthways, so that it will freely pass through the link. Set these hooks in those unprovided upper corners of your remaining walls that come opposite your links when the walls are set up, at such a distance that when the link is bent around the corner it will snugly fit over the hooks. In order to do this, however (and you can see what I mean by a glance at _fig. 12_), you must set your hooks so loosely that you can turn their points backwards. The link is then slipped over, and the reversion of the hook to the position shown in _fig. 12_ binds the two walls cornering there as securely together as the interlocking hooks hold them at the bottom.

You will notice that I have no clamps or link at the front end near the door. There is no chance for any. Instead we trust for solidity to the outside brace, which is specially important, and to the horizontal brace which extends across from the top of the wall to the forward upright. (_See fig. 13._)

The next thing is your canvas. Measure how much you need for your roof, and determine how far down your walls you want it to extend. If you are going to camp in very cold weather, you would do well to have it all the way to the ground. It would add greatly to the warmth. As a rule, though, you will only want it to come well over the top of the siding, with some lapping in front and rear to keep out driving rains. When it is sewed into a big sheet you must attach to it at frequent intervals a short stout strap. Opposite these straps (_fig. 15_) nail to the outside of your walls straps containing big buckles (_fig. 14_) whereby you can buckle down taut your canvas roof. I know of no more secure and convenient method of holding the tent cover than this; but I would advise you to experiment on the reach and “full” of your cloth before nailing the buckles to the wood work.

Now comes the setting of your tent-house up. The first consideration is the position. I can only say that it should be level, and where water will not drain into it in case of heavy rains. The next thing to be decided is, Will you have a floor? If so, lay it a few inches larger than your building, set your house on it, and nail down a narrow cleat all around inside close to the wall; an upright bolt dropping into the floor in the centre of each side, will be well also.