the practical book of home repairs

Front matter

mya nae

ACCESSION

REPECcK No. 680 F86 acyl)

Preface

TWELVE years ago I went into the public schools from the shops of industry, a professional mechanic imbued with the idea that to become even fairly handy with tools one must have the “knack o’ tools born in him.”

My pet belief—a belief held by practically all mechanics—was knocked higher than a kite before the first year was over. I found that, while it was true that only one boy out of every ten had inherited tool dexterity strongly enough ever to become a skilled artisan, the other nine “average” youngsters made astonishing progress in adapting their unmechanical brains and clumsy hands to wood constructive processes. Not only that, but I found girls and young women equally benefited. In fact, the boys surpassed the girls only in doing heavy construction work. In other respects, such as eagerness to follow instructions, neatness and thoroughness of execution, the gentler sex really excelled.

The discovery set me to thinking. It gave mea new faith in my calling; a colossal faith in what the average boy and man can do with tools if given a little help; a faith no less colossal in what the average girl and woman can do at a “man’s job” when she is furnished with directions from those who know.

As time went on, other discoveries came to me. I began to accept a good many invitations to take dinner at the homes of my students. There I met mother and dad, of course. Naturally, too, they praised manual

vu

Vili Preface training in the public schools, and told me how proud they were of the “pretty little things Johnnie had brought home.”

Then dad said, half-apologetically: “Wish I had had Johnnie’s opportunities when I was a lad. In my day there was no manual training. Why, the only way I can drive a nail without hitting my finger is to hold the hammer handle in both hands!”

Then from mother, very wistfully: “Perhaps some day before our Johnnie is through school, they will put other things into manual training besides woodwork. Our door-bell is out of working order half the time, it seems. It would be so nice if Johnnie could only fix that. We often have to wait days for an electrician to come, and his bill is something tremendous.”

Then from dad: “There’s that stopped-up lavatory bowl up-stairs. Now, if Johnnie knew as much about plumbing as he does about woodworking, he and I could clear out that obstruction in less than five minutes; eh, son?”

“But we don’t get that in manual training,” lamented Johnnie, with a shy look my way. “It would be lots of fun, dad, to fix up things around here, only I can’t. All I know is woodworking.”

“Then probably you can tell me how to loosen up that stuck window in your room; I’m blessed if I know,” said dad.

“T guess it ought to be planed, but I don’t know how to get the thing out,” admitted Johnnie. ‘“ We don’t study windows.”

“You know how to break ’em, though,” reminded dad, with a mischievous grin. ‘‘ Remember that baseball you knocked through the big front glass in the

Preface ix house next door last week? If you could have replaced that new glass yourself, your bank account would have been considerably fatter.”

“T guess it would pay us all to be handy around home here,” agreed Johnnie, sagely.

Well, that’s the substance of it! I got it from all sides, when I went out into the homes. These average homes of my average students were all crying for fixing up, for simple little repairs here and there which would have made life far more comfortable and convenient had only Johnnie’s manual training at school been one dealing with household mechanics instead of cultural woodworking. On the wall, where mother had proudly placed it, hung his latest school product— a laminated breadboard,—too pretty, in her eyes, to be used. Under it was the broken zinc lining of the kitchen-cabinet, shrieking for a little solder skilfully applied to make it once more sanitary and usable. But nobody in that “average” household knew how to wield a soldering copper.

Like Johnnie’s multitude of mothers and dads, I began to feel that there must be something wrong with a manual training system that indiscriminately gives only one sort of mechanical development to the average boy. In strictly vocational classes of youths and young men, it is the ideal situation. But in grade schools, where the youngsters are in process of finding their likes and dislikes, abilities and inabilities, there seems no question in my mind but that a program of simplified varied mechanical practices, such as one meets up with in the maintenance of the average household, is the practical and sensible method of putting the thing

im over, i x Preface

From various causes, our home life to-day is growing less and less a binding force. We spend comparatively little time around the family hearthstone. We leave the repairs to professional, disinterested workmen, while we attend the play, the lecture, the dance, the club, or scoot around in our motor-car.

We must go back to the home if we are to preserve our once boasted Yankee ingenuity, our gentility, our Lincoln-like honesty, our faith in ourselves. And nothing will help us get there quite so quickly as to take a healthy, loving interest in fixing up our domicile with our very own hands. Our forefathers and foremothers did it, and thrived physically, mentally, and spiritually. Why not we?

To the average family I send this book out as a friend to be consulted whenever a repair or replacement comes up which seems to puzzle. It covers almost every conceivable household fix-it need, and the methods recited are short, simple, and practical, being such as any expert workman in each line would adopt were he to be called into service. In all instances, costly — outfits of tools have been avoided, so that those recommended will not be difficult for the home-owner to purchase.

All in all, if the present book helps grade manual training to a quicker finding of its true office through popularizing industry in the home by dad, mother, Johnnie, and Sister Sue, I shall feel more than amply

repaid.

CHELSEA FRASER.

Contents

Fittinc Up a Work Corner

UPHOLSTERY REPAIRS - METAL-WoRKING - - SOLDERING REPAIRS - GLAZING REPAIRS - - STAINING AND FILLING -

INTERIOR REFINISHING -