Handyman Tips

Home Handyman Tips

Considerable savings can be made by the home handyman if you have the tools and skills necessary to make repairs around the home.

If he has had little practice or training before, he will find that he has much to learn about even that simplest of processes driving a nail. The first lesson he should learn if he is to be an efficient workman is to grasp the hammer near the end and take a full vigorous swing at the nail. The amateur nailer is apt to grasp the hammer thandle in the middle and deliver short ineffective blows that do not drive the nail far enough to hold firmly for subsequent blows. The result is apt to be a bent nail or such a change in the direction of its point that it comes out the side of the wood instead of being driven firmly home.

Careless starting is another cause of many nailing troubles. If two boards are to be nailed together in a position where they are not easily held together one board should be laid on the bench and the nails driven through it until the points stick out a trifle on the other side. The boards should then be adjusted in their intended places and the nails driven home. If the nail starts to go in the wrong direction through careless hammering it is useless to attempt to change it by pounding on its side. This merely tends to bend the nail without affecting the point. It is better to draw it out and start over again. In drawing nails from wood a block of wood should be placed under the head of the hammer to avoid marring the wood and bending the nail. If the nail is long a second larger block should be substituted for the first after the nail has been drawn out some distance. In this way the hammer handle can be used as an effective lever and the nail can be easily drawn out without bending.

Screws may be used in joining wood where a solider and more permanent joint is desired than that provided by nails. Where two pieces of wood are to be joined by screws a hole slightly smaller than the shank of the screw should be bored in the top piece with a drill. If the pieces are hard wood the bit which is the next size smaller than that used in the top piece should then be substituted and a hole driven some distance into the lower piece. If the wood is soft it is sufficient to have the hole through the top piece. Boring the hole before the screw is set in guards against splitting the wood and also makes the work of turning the screw much easier.

There are a wide variety of wood joints in furniture and cabinet work that require neither nails nor screws. One of the simplest of these methods known as the mortise and tenon. By this means a projection from the end ©f one board is inserted in a slot or hole cut in the other. The projection is called the tenon and the hole in which it is fitted the mortise. The mortise is made by chiseling a square or rectangular hole through one piece at the point where the joint is to be made and paring down the end of the other so that it will fit snugly into this hole. A keyed mortise and tenon joint is formed by allowing the tenon to project on the other side and making a hole in it through which a wooden wedge or key is driven to hold it firmly in place. This is often used in fastening the seat boards of a bench in the side. A blind mortise and tenon is one in which the mortise is not cut clear through.

A common method of joining at corners which must stand considerable strain, such as boxes, is known as the dovetail. This uses the principle of the mortise and tenon except that the mortise is placed at the end of one of the pieces to be joined and is left open at the outside, so that the tenon can be slipped into it from the side. The tenons or pins are thicker at the end than at the shoulder connecting them with the main piece of wood, giving them a flare which resembles the tail of a dove from which the joint gets its name. The mortise slot into which the tenons are fitted must have sides cut sloping so that it is wider at the outside and narrower at the inside, to fit the flare of the tenons.

A joint of this kind, when well made and fastened with glue, is frequently fully as strong as the main body of the wood.

The half blind dovetail joint is frequently used in the construction of drawers for cabinets and desks where the front is made of heavier hard wood conforming with the rest of the outside and the rest of the drawer is made of thinner soft wood. For this purpose the mortises in the front piece of the drawer are left open only at one side.

In making such a drawer a groove should be cut around the lower inside of the front piece and two side pieces of the drawer. This should be a distance equal to about twice the thickness of the bottom piece from the lower edges of the boards to be grooved. Other grooves, at the opposite end of the two side pieces from that cut for the dovetail joint, should be cut at right angles to the grooves provided for the bottom. The back of the drawer is slipped into these grooves when the side pieces and bottom are in place. The pieces are held in place by glue, except on large or rough work when nails may be used on the sides bottom.

Another joint in even more common use for frames of various sorts is the miter joint. This consists merely in cutting the ends of the boards to be joined to form two sides of a square or rectangular frame at angles of 45 degrees. By use of the miter box described earlier this is a simple operation.

This joint must be nailed or screwed to hold the pieces together. The householder is likely to have much experience with this joint in repairing or making screen frames as it is commonly used in work of that sort. He would do well to prepare a nailing frame for these joints after the plan here illustrated. This device consists of a board on which a large block, or two blocks fitted together, with a corner that is a true 90 degrees, is screwed firmly in place. Near the edges of this board opposite the block two other blocks with the inside faces slightly sloping are screwed. The frame to be nailed is laid with the inside corner against 90 degree angle of the inside block, and wedges are driven tightly between the sloping faces of the outside blocks and the frame. The nails may then be driven into place without any danger that the frame will slip.

Another device which the home repairman will find valuable in his work is a means of holding a door open while repairing it and holder. This can be made by collecting three or four small lengths of studding or other odd bits of lumber. A wooden block is placed on either side of the door when it is held at the angle convenient for the work. A plank or length of studding is then laid on one of these blocks and pushed up until it engages a. bottom corner of the door. The process is repeated on the other block with a second plank. Pressure in either direction on the door will then merely serve to wedge it more tightly into place.

A simple device for preventing a screen door from slamming may be provided by the addition of a bumping post of the sort that can be bought at any hardware store it it is placed on the inside of the screen door frame. On the casing of the doorway at a point where its top will just engage the end of this post immediately before the door shuts a small block of soft rubber is screwed on with a single screw that, is left loose enough to serve as a pivot. The lower part of this piece of rubber projects in a long point. The upper end is blunter and so less yielding. The bumper post engages this top just before the door slams and pushing it back turns the long lower point out to touch the advancing door frame and break the force with which it strikes the door frame. The amount of yielding at the point enables the head of the bumper post to advance over the top point of the rubber which comes to rest on the shank of the post. When the door is again opened the head of bumper post in moving out pulls the top around in position again for the next operation.

Screen doors, especially when they are in frequent use or where there are a number of children, have a tendency to sag after they have been in use for a time. A method of preventing this is a brace brewed to two sides of the frame and capable of being tightened by twisting the center piece. It aids in holding the sides firm by its position and if there is sagging or warping, later this can be remedied by tightening the brace.

The periodical painting of screens to keep them from rusting is another frequent task for the workshop. The top of the saw horse can be made into a convenient rest for the screens while being painted by driving a couple of nails in its top to prevent the screen from slipping and resting the top of the screen against the wall or a post. In painting screen wire there should be a strong light from the side so that if the paint has a tendency to cover over the mesh of the screen this may be seen at once and the paint thinned to correct it.

USE of a plane is frequently necessary for good results in home carpentry and cabinet work. The cutting edge of the plane should be kept sharp and for most work should be tightened so as to make a thin shaving in order to avoid producing a rough surface.

In finishing a rough piece of wood, one side should be planed smooth to serve as a "face." When all roughness has been removed it should be tested by laying a straight edge or the arm of the ell across the planed surface, and holding toward the light. When no light shows between the straight edge and the surface of the wood at any point the face will be completed. Laying one arm of the ell across the face just planed and the other over' the end at one corner a line at right angles to the face should be marked across the end. A mark should be drawn across the opposite end at the corresponding corner in the same way and an edge of the board planed down to correspond to the lines so marked.

When this edge has been made true the marking gauge may be used to lay off the lines for the opposite edge at a uniform distance from the edge already planed. Using the ell, lines may be marked on the edges now planed near each corner and at right angles to the face to serve as guides in planing the two ends.

The next step is to plane the surface opposite the face. If care has been used in planing, surfaces will be smooth and cornets will be true right angles.

Source: Woman's Weekly Supplement, 1923.

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