Part 5

File up all open parts so that the joints will be at right angles to the hinge. Do this carefully or else they will not swing true when hinged together. Use the cut hinge to measure off the sections on the other hinge. Cut out sections 1, 3, 5 on the second hinge, allowing a little on each section for filing. Fit the two parts together and fasten by pushing a wire through. Try the hinge to see that it works true and snug. Select one of the sides as the back of the box, put the lid on, with the hinge in place. You will notice that the thickness of the hinge prevents the lid from fitting down on the box. File the side of the box down so the hinge sets flush with the top, and file the wings of the hinge down to a taper. The wings are to be riveted, one flat to the under side of the lid, and the other to the back, after bending it down on the inside of the box. See section view. Hinges are sometimes soldered in place. To do this, wash the joints with a little soft-solder fluid. Heat the box in the bunsen flame hot enough to make the solder run in between the joints. File any rough edges off, smooth down carefully, and polish.

CEDAR CHEST (WITH BRASS TRIMMINGS)

A plain cedar chest is much improved by the addition of copper or brass trimmings. They add strength, too, to the box.

The design shows a cedar chest with hinges, corner plates, handles, and lock plate. The screws can be bought with pyramid-shaped heads, which resemble hand-made rivets. They add very much to the general effect of the whole. One must be guided by the size of the box in selecting the appropriate screw decorations. This box is 12 × 20 × 36 ins. The lid is 2 ins. deep.

_Hinges:_ The hinges should be made of No. 10 copper or brass, 3 ins. wide, and should extend two-thirds of the way across the top and half way down the back. This tends to keep the lid straight and support the back of the box.

_Lock plate:_ The plate is made of a piece of 8 × 3 in. metal, the same thickness as the material used in the hinges. The design should correspond to the design of the hinges. The key way is in the lock plate, toward the top.

_Handles and handle plate:_ The handles are made of 1/2-in. round copper or brass, large in the middle, tapering toward the ends. These ends are turned up, fitted into eye bolts and riveted into the handles. The handles should be 10 × 4 ins., with the design of the hinges and the lock plate carried out.

_Corner plates:_ These plates go on the four corners of the chest. They are made of No. 14 metal. Perhaps the simplest way to make them is to take a piece of No. 14 metal and cut a 6-in. square. Draw the diagonals. Cut out one of the four triangles from this square. Now bend the piece along the diagonal lines and you make a corner to fit on the box. Solder this open corner to the box. In making corners for the lid, make the same pattern and trim it down to suit the depth of the lid.

The trimmings on the box can be left smooth or they can be treated with the peen of the hammer and a facet surface put on, which is done quickly and is very decorative in effect.

The hinge part of the hinge is made as explained in the article on hinge making. The metal used here would be quite strong enough just to turn over in the pin without soldering it first to the body of the hinge piece.

Put the lock on the chest before the lock plate is placed. This fixes the place for the key-hole; otherwise one might get the key way too close to the opening and find no lock that would fit it. The handles are put in by means of screws, but a much stronger one is made by using bolts and screws. The bolts that hold the handle on the plate are carried through the box, and a nut and washer fasten them tight on the inside.

DESK SET IN COPPER

Ink well holder and pen tray. Book rack. Corners for desk pad. Letter file. Bill file. Stamp box. Paper cutter, letter opener, and book mark.

INK WELL HOLDER AND PEN TRAY

_Material:_ No. 16 copper, 10-1/2 × 5-1/2 ins., for the tray. No. 16 copper, 1-1/2 × 8 ins., for the box. No. 16 copper, 3 ins. square, for lid.

_Directions:_ Tray: You will notice, in the design of the tray given, a 3/8-in. ledge all around. The inside of the tray is lowered 1/4 in. except a square place in the centre toward the back large enough for the box to set upon. The depression in the tray is made in the same way as described before in making the small square tray. You put it into the vise and with a round wooden peg drive it in according to the design. The ledge must remain parallel to the bottom of the tray. Round it off by placing the tray on the anvil stake and driving the proper curve in it with the wooden mallet.

_Box or holder--Sides:_ Take the copper piece, 8 × 1-1/2 ins. and divide it into 2-in. spaces. Bend these at right angles to form a square box, the open ends meeting at one side. Solder with hard solder. _Lid:_ Take the 3-in. square piece. Over a square block the exact size of the inside of the box drive the piece for the lid. The corners must be driven down even so that the lid will fit on the top of the box; otherwise the ink will evaporate. The hinge on the lid is made with a drawn tube in the same way as was described in the article on the making of hinges. The box is now ready to be put on the tray. File the surface of the projecting square flat, so that the box will set level. Bind it down with binding wire, and solder in the usual way.

_Ring and ring post fastened to the box:_ The post is made of a piece of 3/8-in. square copper. At a distance of 5/16 in. from the end a shoulder is filed on it, with the stem long enough to go through the thickness of the lid. A hole, too, is drilled through one end of this post large enough for a 1/8-in. copper ring to be pushed through. This copper ring is made by turning a piece of copper wire around a 1/2-in. round rod in a spiral shape. Cut off the ring or rings as you need them. This ring is opened out, pushed into the hole, and squeezed together. It acts as a little handle to lift up the lid. A piece of blotting paper the exact size of the lid is pushed into the inside of it. This helps to keep the ink from evaporating. If the piece of work has been carefully done there will be little finishing and filing to do. You can readily see that the beauty of metal work depends as much upon the finish as upon the design.

BOOK-RACK

Book-racks are most useful for holding choice books on one's desk. They are made of heavy copper. This design is made so that one can place any number of books between them, by pushing the side pieces out. All book-racks are made in the same way. The design on the side pieces can be sawed out (or pierced) or embossed, or the facets left by the hammer will make a beautiful decoration. Any design work, however, must be done while the copper is in a straight piece, otherwise the bending is apt to spoil the work.

_Material:_ Two pieces of copper, No. 14, 12 × 6 ins.

_Directions:_ In the design shown here the edge of the upright ends are rounded. Some have just the corners rounded off. Decide upon the design you wish. Cut it out, and file the copper sheet accordingly. Make the edges of the whole rack perfectly smooth and rounded. Mark off 6 ins. from one end. Bend this at the 6-in. line at right angles to the 8-in. piece. It is well to do the bending over a wooden block in the vise, using a mallet so as not to mar the metal. Polish and finish as before.

METAL CORNERS FOR A DESK PAD

Metal corners made of brass, copper, or silver are found very useful for protecting the corners of blotters upon desks. They keep the corners from curling up and add much to the general appearance of any desk. The designs are many, but for all practical purposes the plain corners seem best, as they are more sanitary.

_Material:_ The pieces of metal 6 × 2-1/2 ins. No. 22.

_Directions:_ Mark your copper sheet off like this pattern. Now get a piece of wood, iron, or copper about 3/16 in. thick and just the shape of one of these corner designs. This 3/16 in. thickness will be about equal to the thickness of your blotter and the thickness of the card-board. Take your copper sheet and bend the ends along the lines marked on the pattern, over the iron or wood form, driving them down to fit the shape well. You now have a triangular piece with an opening on one side. This piece would slide over the corner of a card-board pad usually cut about 24 × 18 ins. Solder the edges together. It is necessary to rivet these corners to the card-board to prevent their slipping off easily. To do this drill a small hole down through the under side close to the edge, slip these corners on the card-board, push the iron form in, and drive the rivet through the hole, through the card-board against the iron plate, thus riveting the corners to the card-board. Take out the iron plate and repeat on the four corners. If designs are to be made on metal, they must be sawed out or pierced while the metal is in the straight piece. Polish free from all roughness. A piece of soft flannel or woollen cloth is glued on the under side of these corners, so that the metal cannot scratch the desk, or any polished surface it rests upon.

BILL FILE

This is a useful article for filing notes or memoranda of things that need immediate attention. There is very little variety in design. The base can be made square, circular, six-sided, etc., and decorated in many ways. It looks well either in copper or brass. Only heavy copper should be used, in order to give weight to the base.

_Material:_ A 3-1/2-in. square of No. 10 copper. Rod of sharpened steel.

_Directions:_ Take a piece of iron 1/2 × 2-1/2 × 2-1/2 ins. Go to any scrap heap for this. Place the copper sheet over this block of iron, letting the surplus metal extend evenly all around. Put it into the vise with the corner vertical. Tighten it up and drive the metal over the corner till it touches the sides of the iron. Do this on all the corners. Make the outside of the metal fit tightly over this iron, acting as a shape or form. If the metal should feel springy before driving it up close, anneal it. Notice that in driving these corners down they are longer than the four sides, and they suggest feet. If filed flat and smoothed up you have a square box with a foot on each corner. Take it off the iron form and make the top rounding by driving it over the hollow block. Now drill a 1/8-in. hole through the middle. Place the copper rod in the hole and solder with hard solder.

PAPER CUTTER, LETTER OPENER, BOOK MARK

_Paper cutter:_ No article on a desk is more useful than a good paper cutter. It may be one with a plain flat blade, no marked handle and without decoration aside from that of the metal itself with its hammer marks left upon it. Again we may have one with blade and handle, the blade either pointed (sharp edged or blunt), the handle plain or with sawed-out design. Those with pointed blades are serviceable as letter openers too. Then some designs have handles made long enough to turn the end over, forming a raised handle.

_Material:_ Piece of No. 20 copper, 7/8 × 9 ins.

_Directions:_ If the blade is to be pointed, take your strip of copper and draw a line right through the centre. Mark a point 1/8 in. on the end, either side of the centre line. Draw lines from these points to the extreme ends of the other side. See dotted lines in the sketch.

File up the edges rounding, and polish the whole. Select a piece of copper free from scratches and marks of any kind for this work. This paper cutter can be left smooth, or it can be decorated by the marks left by the planishing hammer. These marks give a good finish and look well.

PAPER CUTTER WITH TURNED HANDLE

_Material:_ Piece of No. 20 copper, 7/8 × 16 ins.

_Directions:_ Mark off lines on the copper strip as you did to make the plain paper cutter. Carry the tapering lines back 7 ins. Cut off these side pieces with shears. File the edges for the whole length smooth. If any decorating is to be done, do it while the copper is in the straight piece, as it can't be done easily after the handle is turned. All filing, too, must be done before the handle is turned. When filed and smoothed up or decorated as you wish, bend half the remaining 9 inches of the copper over and on to the blade, in this way forming the handle. The size of the handle will depend upon one's feeling of comfort or discomfort about it. If the edges still feel a little rough a piece of emery cloth will smooth them down.

LETTER OPENERS

Letter openers are really small paper cutters and are made in exactly the same way. They are shorter and narrower than the paper cutter, but almost always have a sharp pointed blade. Many scraps of copper left over after the making of large pieces can be used to make letter openers.

BOOK MARK

Book marks are very handy to have on one's desk. They are easily made and if very light copper is used need not be heavy or clumsy. They should be made very smooth, for they must slip easily into place in the book.

_Material:_ No. 30 copper, 3 × 3/4 in. _Directions:_ This drawing can be used as the guide. Make it the required size and work just as you did when making the paper cutter. The little tongue on the inside is sawed out. It should swing easily to and fro, as it must be pushed open to catch the pages of a book and clamp them down. File and finish very smooth. If it is left the least bit rough it would tear the paper as it is pushed in.

BRASS WORK

XIII

FINGER BOWL, CRUMB TRAY, TEA CADDY, VASE, BELL AND BRACKET, DRAWER PULLS, ETC.

_Brass:_ Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. The zinc colours the copper and gives it the yellowish or brassy look, depending upon the amount of zinc melted with it. While the operations are the same whether you are working with brass, copper, or silver, the presence of the zinc in brass makes it less pliable than the pure metals. That is why brass hardens so quickly under hammering, making it necessary to anneal the metal very often in order to work it. But zinc and copper combined melt at a lower temperature than copper or silver pure, so that great care must be taken when preparing the metal for soldering or annealing that you do not heat it over a dull red heat before plunging it into water.

TO MAKE A BRASS FINGER BOWL

Finger bowls of brass are very ornamental and useful and can be made of the simplest designs. A half dozen are a welcome addition to any table. Design the bowl and proceed exactly as you did with the copper bowl, working the sheet of brass up into a rough bowl shape on the hard wood block. Using the same tools, finish the bowl on the round stake. The surface of the bowl may be left mottled, or it can be smoothed up, as one wishes.

These sketches suggest a number of articles that can be made out of brass.

CRUMB TRAY AND SCRAPER

_Material:_ One piece of brass, 10 × 6 ins., No. 16. One piece of brass, 12 × 4 ins., No. 16.

_Tools:_ Anvil stake, mallet, shears, dividers.

_Directions:_ With the dividers set at 5 ins., one leg of the dividers tangent with the top of the brass plate and the other in the centre lengthwise of the piece, draw a circle. Cut around the circle with the shears. Beat over 3/4 in. of the centre part of the circle, tapering along the circle line toward each end. Round up this edge and curve it a little inward on wood block so that when grasped by the fingers it will be comfortable. Smooth off edge and make the flat part perfectly straight, so that when placed on the table to receive the crumbs it will lie perfectly flat.

CRUMB SCRAPER

A very simple design is given here. Mark out the dimensions on a sheet of paper and lay the design on a sheet of brass. Cut the brass out to fit the design. Using the mallet, drive up the rounding part on the anvil stake to match the rounding part on the tray.

_Handle of scraper:_ Place the handle part on a hard wood block and with the small end of the raising hammer drive down on the handle, embossing it from the outside toward the front. Give it a half hollow shape. If the edge of the handle is smoothed off with a file and made rounding, it makes a good handle for the scraper. Flatten the scraping edge so that it lies flat on the table and picks up all the crumbs on its way to the tray. Polish and finish as you did the tray.

TEA CADDY

_Material:_ One piece 24-gauge soft brass (yellow), 11 × 3-1/4 ins. (for body). Disc 3-7/8 ins. in diameter (for bottom). Square: 4-3/4 ins. for lid. Two strips, 11 × 3/4 ins., one for rim of lid and one for rim of body.

_Tools:_ Block used to make round tray (copper), drilling hammer, mallet, wooden peg, iron stake, silver solder, steel stippling tool.

_Directions:_ Take the piece of brass 11 × 3-1/4 ins. Bend it till the edges meet to make a cylinder. Bind it round with a piece of binding wire. See that the edges come together tight. Wash with borax. Use silver solder and proceed as before with soldering. Cool in water, clean off the joint both inside and outside till the surplus silver is filed off smooth. This leaves a fine joint line which will take on the colour of brass in time and will scarcely be noticed. Round the cylinder up by placing it on a round stake or on a round wood block. Tap gently with your mallet to do this.

_Bottom:_ Take the 3-7/8-in. disc. Draw a circle on it equal to the bottom of the cylinder. Put the anvil stake into the vise. With the edge of the circle on the square end of the stake, drive the metal with the driving hammer, so that the upturned rim is at right angles to the disc. Test this to see that the rim stands up all round and fits the outside of the cylinder close. File the top edge of this smooth and a little rounding. Shape up and solder as you would a copper piece, keeping in mind the low melting point of brass. The heating of the bottom for soldering must heat the body of the caddy to a red heat and there is danger of unsoldering the part done. To prevent this melting, the soldered joint should be painted both inside and outside with rouge or ordinary clay wash. Mix a little clay in a saucer to a liquid and rub it over the joint. If the soldering is carefully done there will be little filing to do afterward.

_Rim (for the body):_ Take your 11 × 3/4-in. piece. Bend it into a circle to fit the inside of the body. Cut it off the right length, bind and solder the two ends together. Clean off, round up on the stake, and make it just large enough to drive it into the top, pushing it down until about 3/8 in. extends above the cylinder. This supports the rim of the lid. If it is driven down tight it will hold of itself in place. If not, use a little soft solder to make it secure.

_Lid:_ One square piece, 4-3/4 ins. Take the mould used for your round tray. Punch holes in each corner of the brass plate, and nail it right over the depression as you did when you made the round tray. With your round peg drive the metal into the depression. When the metal is perfectly smooth and fits the impression take it out. Place the body of the caddy over the top of this lid piece and mark around it. Make a second circle 3/8 in. beyond the one just made. Cut out along the outer circle. Now draw a circle on the inside of the lid equal to the body of the tea caddy. Place the lid on the anvil stake and turn it up as you did the bottom piece. This should be made the same size as the bottom, as it must fit over the same diameter. Make the rim for the lid in the same way as you did the rim for the body. Round it up. Be careful that the rim of the lid fits over the rim of the body and that the diameter of the rim on the lid equals the diameter of the body of the caddy. Place the rim on the lid and soft solder it.

_To decorate:_ With the steel stippling tool mark any little design on the surface of the lid or body, or both, pricking up the design. Finish the work by polishing the same way as copper is polished. You can prevent its tarnishing by the use of lacquer. This lacquer can be bought at any paint shop. It is put on with a brush and left to dry. The lacquer being transparent does not cover up any of the design.

VASE (IN BRASS)

_Material:_ Yellow brass, No. 20. One piece, 7-1/4 × 9 ins. (for the body). One piece, 5-in. disc (for base). Handles, 2 pieces, 5-1/2 × 5/16 ins. square.

_Tools:_ Hard wood block, shears, anvil stake, files, raising hammer, carpenters' gouge, chisel.

_Design:_ Vase, 7-1/4 ins. high, with a diameter at the top of 2-1/2 in. The body tapers toward the base. Two handles, one on each side, to be designed according to taste. The base is to be weighted in order to insure safety when in use for flowers, etc.

_Directions:_ Make a pattern for the vase in the following way: Draw a 2-1/2-in. circle. Using the same centre, draw a 1-in. circle inside the 2-1/2-in.

Through the centre of these circles draw a line 9 ins. long; 3/4 in. below the outer circle, over this centre line draw a line 1 in. long, 1/2 in. on one side and 1/2 in. on the other. Seven inches below this 1-in. line draw a 2-1/2-in. line, 1-1/4 in. on one side and 1-1/4 in. on the other. Connect the inside points of each line with the top line (see design), drawing lines between the two points. If the pattern is carefully developed from the drawing the metal will fold up in the right way for a vase. To do this, continue the tapering lines beyond the circle until the two lines intersect. With the point of the compass on the point of intersection, and the pencil point where the sides meet the 1-in. line, draw an arc of a circle any length. Using the same centre, open the compass until the pencil reaches the base lines. Draw an arc of a circle any length. Use your 30° and 60° angle and divide the half of the circle into 6 equal parts. Take one of these 6 divisions with your compass, and step off their distance on the large circle 12 times. You now have the exact circumference for the top of the vase. Draw lines from these points to the point of intersection. This marks off the small circle or base. Connect the 12-in. point on the top and bottom with solid lines. Cut this pattern out and lay it on the metal. Cut out the metal and fold up. It should fit the drawing. The edges should meet close. Clean, bind, and solder as you did with the copper work.

_Base:_ Use the hard wood block and drive up the 5-in. disc over the depression. Shape it as nearly as you can like the design, using the same method as you did with the copper bowl. Keep annealing this brass whenever it feels springy. Place it on the anvil stake. Use the driving hammer and shape it.

Repeat the annealing and hammering until the desired shape is gotten. Notice in the design that the neck is a little smaller than the bottom of the vase. Place this small end on the point of the anvil stake and swell it out, forming a little rounding collar so that the end of the vase will slip in and fit tight. When the end of the vase is in position, wash the joint with a little soft-soldering fluid, place a little soft solder in the joint and heat until it melts. Be careful that the solder does not run over the collar. It is so hard to file off the brass.

_To weigh down the base:_ Turn the base upside down. Melt enough soft lead to fill up the opening level with the bottom. A circular piece of brass is made to fit over the lead to hide it. Lap the edges of the base over the piece just enough to hold this and the lead in place.