shavings, blocks, and kindling wood, which are in the way in the blacksmith shop, and a spark from the anvil might set the shavings afire.

A woodworking bench, Figure 7, carpenter’s bench, it is usually called, needs a short leg vise with wide jaws. The top of the vise should be flush with the top of the bench, so the boards may be worked when lying flat on the top of the bench. For the same reason the bench dog should lower down flush when not needed to hold the end of the board.

It is customary to make carpenter’s benches separate from the shop, and large enough to stand alone, so they may be moved out doors or into other buildings.

Figure 7.—Carpenter’s Bench. A woodworking bench is 16′ long, 3′ 6″ wide and 32″ high. The height, to be particular, should be the length of the leg of the man who uses it. Lincoln, when joking with Stanton, gave it as his opinion that “a man’s legs should be just long enough to reach the ground.” But that rule is not sufficiently definite to satisfy carpenters, so they adopted the inside leg measurement. They claim that the average carpenter is 5′ 10″ tall and he wears a 32″ leg.

Figure 8.—Carpenter’s Trestle, or Saw-Bench. The top piece is 4 x 6 and the legs are 2 x 4. There is sufficient spread of leg to prevent it from toppling over, but the legs are not greatly in the way. It is heavy enough to stand still while you slide a board along. It is 2 feet high.

Figure 9.—Shave Horse. For shaping pieces of hardwood for repair work. A good shave horse is about 8′ long and the seat end is the height of a chair. The head is carved on a hardwood stick with three projections to grip different sized pieces to be worked.

Figure 10.—Compasses, Wooden Clamp and Cutting Pliers.

Carpenter benches may be well made, or they may be constructed in a hurry. So long as the top is true it makes but little difference how the legs are attached, so long as they are strong and enough of them. A carpenter bench that is used for all kinds of work must be solid enough to permit hammering, driving nails, etc. Usually the top of the bench is straight, true and level and it should be kept free from litter and extra tools.

Good carpenters prefer a tool rack separate from the bench. It may stand on the floor or be attached to the wall. Carpenter tools on a farm are not numerous, but they should have a regular place, and laborers on the farms should be encouraged to keep the tools where they belong.

Figure 11.—Monkey-Wrenches are the handiest of all farm wrenches, but they were never intended to hammer with. Two sizes are needed—an eight-inch for small nuts and a much larger wrench, to open two inches or more, to use when taking the disks off the shafts of a disk harrow. A large pipe-wrench to hold the round shaft makes a good companion tool for this work.

WOODWORKING TOOLS

Every farmer has an axe or two, some sort of a handsaw and a nail hammer. It is astonishing what jobs of repair work a handy farmer will do with such a dearth of tools. But it is not necessary to worry along without a good repair kit. Tools are cheap enough.

Such woodworking tools as coarse and fine toothed hand saws, a good square, a splendid assortment of hammers and the different kinds of wrenches, screw clamps, boring tools—in fact a complete assortment of handy woodworking tools is an absolute necessity on a well-managed farm.

The farm kit should contain two sizes of nail hammers, see Figure 15, one suitable to drive small nails, say up to eight penny, and the other for large nails and spikes; a long thin-bladed handsaw, having nine teeth to the inch, for sawing boards and planks; a shorter handsaw, having ten teeth to the inch, for small work and for pruning trees. A pruning saw should cut a fine, smooth kerf, so the wound will not collect and hold moisture.

Figure 12.—Hand Saw. This pattern, both for cross cut and rip saw, has been adopted by all makers of fine saws. Nine teeth to the inch is fine enough for most jobs on the farm.

Figure 13.—Keyhole Saw with point slim enough to start the cut from a half-inch auger hole.

Figure 14.—Bramble Hook for trimming berry bushes and cleaning out fence corners. It has a knife-edge with hooked sawteeth.

Farmers’ handsaws are required to do a great many different kinds of work. For this reason, it is difficult to keep them in good working condition, but if both saws are jointed, set and filed by a good mechanic once or twice a year, they may be kept in usable condition the rest of the time by a handy farm workman, unless extra building or special work is required.

Figure 15.—Nail Hammers. Two styles. The upper hammer is made with a ball peen and a round face. It is tempered to drive small nails without slipping and shaped to avoid dinging the wood. This hammer should weigh 18 or 19 ounces, including the handle. The lower hammer is heavier, has a flat face and is intended for heavy work such as driving spikes and fence staples.

A long-bladed ripsaw is also very useful, and what is commonly termed a keyhole saw finds more use on the farm than in a carpenter’s shop in town. It is necessary frequently to cut holes through partitions, floors, etc., and at such times a keyhole saw works in just right.

Handaxes are necessary for roughing certain pieces of wood for repair jobs. Two sizes of handaxes for different kinds of work are very useful, also a wide blade draw shave, Figure