stand erect while boring. The home made handle is welded onto the shank of a ship auger.

A wooden carpenter’s level, Figure 23, two feet long, with a plumb glass near one end, is the most satisfactory farm level, an instrument that is needed a great many times during the year.

Good brace bits are scarce on farms. They are not expensive, but farmers are careless about bits and braces. Two sizes of braces are needed, a small brace for small pod bits and twist drills, and a large ratchet brace with a 6-inch crank radius for turning larger bits.

Figure 32.—Carpenter’s Jointer.

Figure 33.—Fore-Plane. This style plane is preferred to a regular jointer for most farm work.

Twist drill bits will bore both wood and iron, and they are not expensive up to three-eighths inch or one-half inch. But for larger sizes from one-half inch to one inch the finest lip wood boring bits will give the best satisfaction. Extension bits are used for boring holes larger than one inch. Two extension bits are better than one bit with two lip cutters. They will bore holes in soft wood in sizes from one inch to three inches.

Other cutting tools such as jack plane jointer and smoothing plane, also an assortment of chisels, belong to the farm equipment.

Figure 34.—Tool Box of Socket Chisels and Gouges. The chisels are sized from ¹⁄₂″ to 2″ in width. The two chisels to the right show different patterns.

All cutting tools should be of the best design and the best steel. If they are properly used and taken care of, the different jobs of repair work can be handled quickly and to great advantage.

FARM GRINDSTONE

A grindstone may be gritty without being coarse so it will bite the steel easily and cut it away quickly. A good stone is a very satisfactory farm implement, but a greasy stone is a perpetual nuisance.

There are grindstones with frames too light. The competition to manufacture and sell a grindstone for farm use at the cheapest possible price has resulted in turning out thousands of grindstone frames that possess very little stability.

Figure 35.—Grindstone. The speed of a grindstone varies with the diameter of the stone. It should turn just fast enough to keep a flow of water on the upper face surface. If the stone turns too slow the water will run down; if too fast, it will fly off.

Grindstones should be kept under cover; the best stone will be injured by leaving it in the hot sun. The sun draws the moisture out of the upper side and leaves the lower side damp and soft so that in use the stone soon becomes flat sided. The wet side freezes in winter, which is a disintegrating process.

The best stones, with good care, will become uneven in time. The remedy is to true them with a quarter-inch soft iron round rod used like a lathe tool over an iron rest placed close to the stone on a level with the center of the stone. The rod is held against the stone in such a way as to cut away the high bumps and make the stone truly round. The stone cuts away best when it is dry. A small rod is better than a large rod. It digs into the stone better and takes out a deeper bite. Large power stones in machine shops are trued up in this way frequently. Farm stones often are neglected until they wabble so badly that it is difficult to grind any tool to an edge. If the grindstone is turned by a belt from an engine the work of truing may be done in a few minutes. If the stone is turned by hand the work of making it round takes longer and requires some muscle, but it pays.

The face of a grindstone should be rounded slightly, and it should be kept so by grinding the tools first on one side of edge of the stone, then on the other, with the cutting edge of the tool crosswise to the face of the stone.

For safety and to prevent a sloppy waste of water the stone should turn away from the operator.

The best way to keep a stone moist is by a trickle of water from an overhead supply. Troughs of water suspended under the stone are unsatisfactory, because the water soon gets thick and unfit for use. Such troughs are forgotten when the job is done, so that one side of the stone hangs in the water. An overhead supply of water leaks away and no damage is done.

Grindstone frames are best made of wood 3″ x 4″ thoroughly mortised together and well braced with wooden braces and tied across with plenty of iron rods. A good grindstone frame could be made of angle iron, but manufacturers generally fail in the attempt.

There are good ball-bearing grindstone hangers on the market, both for hand crank stones and for belt use.

The belt is less in the way if it is brought up from below. This is not difficult to do. A grindstone turns slower than any other farm machine so a speed reducing jack may be bolted to the floor at the back of the grindstone a little to one side to escape the drip. This arrangement requires a short belt but it may have the full face width of the pulley as the tight and loose pulleys are on the jack shaft.

Emery Grinders.—There are small emery wheels made for grinding disks that work quickly and cut an even bevel all around. They are made in pairs and are attached to the ends of a mandrel supported by a metal stand which is bolted to a bench. The same rig is used for sickle grinding and other farm jobs.

Figure 36.—Emery Grinder. The illustrations show two kinds of grinding that double emery wheels are especially adapted to. To grind a mowing-machine knife it is necessary to reverse. By placing the rest opposite the center between the two wheels the bevel will be the same on both sides, or edges, of the section.

BLACKSMITH SHOP

The furniture in a blacksmith shop consists of forge, anvil, half barrel, vise bench, drill press and tool rack. A farm shop also has a heating stove, shave horse, a woodworking bench, a good power driven grindstone and a double emery grinder.

Forge.—The old-fashioned forge laid up with brick in connection with an old-fashioned chimney is just as popular as ever. The same old tuyer iron receives the air blast from the same old style leather bellows, and there is nothing more satisfactory. But there are modern portable forges, Figure 37, made of iron, that are less artistic, cheaper, take up less room and answer the purpose just about as well. The portable iron forge has