The boy engineers

Front matter

I UBRARY OF CONGRESS. |

Chap. ^'XjlhO^ Shelf

)t UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Preface

T is perhaps of no great importance to tlie reader

to know how the outline of the following

J narrative came into my possession. Perhaps the surgeon who is spoken of in the introductory chapter placed it in my hands, and perhaps he did not ; but it was in any case lawfully my own, to do with as I pleased j and I therefore put it into book form for the benefit of my old friends. The Boys. In doing so, I found it necessary to add considerably to it, and so to modify it that, while relating what the BoT Engineers said and did, I might from personal knowledge of the mechanical arts assist the youngsters in their work. The a PREFACE.

volume, therefore, will be found to contain something more than a record of Boy Engineering, while, at the same time, there is no work described in it which a persevering and industrious lad might not accomplish. I therefore hope that not only will my young readers become interested in the tale of what was done by these youngsters, but themselves make trial of their skill in

the construction of similar works.

J. L.

Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY

URING the time of my residence at the village of Brampton, in the year 18—, I became acquainted with two brothers who were being educated at Huutingdou Grammar School, about four miles distant. They were the sous of a retired captain in the Eoyal Isavy, who, although by no means rich, had sufficient means to live in comfort. His name was Addison, and the boys Henry and Arthur were better known as Harry and Tim, the latter name scarcely agreeing with that which his godfathers and godmotbers had given- him when he submitted, under somewhat noisy protest, to the baptismal rite. For a long time I could not divine the origin of his assumed name, but I subsequently discovered that it was derived from one Timothy Potter, an itinerant mender of pots, pans, and umbrellas, with whom my young friend held frequent commercial inter-

BOY ENGINEERS.

course as a vendor of divers articles needed in his trade. It was old Tim wlio supplied solder, and wire, and odds and ends of tin and brass wherewith Arthus' and his elder brother jjractised various handicrafts after their own fashion. For these and similar articles Henrj^ seldom dealt personally with the tinker, not because he was too proud, but because his colleague was a better hand at driving a bargain, and did not object to any amount of higgling, so that he obtained his object in the end. I'm afraid, however, that, after all, old Tim beat young Tim sadly at these transactions, and made a very handsome profit, even when he declared that he was selling under cost price ; especially as I had reason to think that the old tinker sometimes obtained his wares without paying for them at all.

My acquaintance with these lads originated in professional attendance rendered for a somewhat severe cut which Harry had inflicted on himself with a chisel in some carpentering operation. I found him not only a courageous boy who could bear pain without flinching, but an exti'cmely ingenious youngster at mechanical work, and (which is not always the case) one exceedingly anxious to acquire information both in the theory and practice of engineering. His younger brother shared this predilection, and was in some respects the neatest hand of the two in actual work, though somewhat behind Harry in theore-

AT SCHOOL.

tical knowledge. Being myself fond of mechanics, and the possessor of a lathe and other simple requisites, we naturally struck up a friendship ; and perhaps the loss of my own son, who was an only child, tended to draw my affections towards two lads who were by no means unlike him in disposition and tastes, and of whom, moreover, the youngest was not very dissimilar in personal appearance. Both the boys subsequently rose to eminence in their profession, but the eldest died comparatively young, having specially intrusted to my care an autobiography of his school-days, which I shall now present in a modified form to my readers.

*' We had," says the writer, " an old wooden outhouse, adjoining the school, which had once served as a fowlhouse, but the feathery tenants had long since had notice to quit, and their home had not been transferred to new occupants. Tim and I cast many a longing look at the old shed, for it was little else, and had fancied that it might be conveited into a very tolerable workshop by a moderate outlay of hoarded pocket-money, if we could but persuade our worthy schoolmaster to let us have it. For some time, however, we coidd not make up our minds to prefer the request, but contented ourselves with practising a little diplomacy, by keeping out of all mischief, and working zealously at our respective tasks. Having thus established

BO Y ENGINEERS.

a good character, which we managed also to retain, we determined on writing a joint petition, and we further proposed to do this in choicest schoolboy Latin. Having obtained a sheet of foolscap, as looking more official and business-like than notepaper, we began, after much consideration, as follows : —

'"'■ ' Oh, hang it,' said I, ' we shall never get to the end of the letter, Jim. I don't think 'tis bad grammar exactly, so far ; but I am in a hurry to come to the point, and for the life of me I can't find out the Latin for workshop, or fowlhouse, or padlock. " Gallinae domus," I suppose, would do for henhouse; but I vote we chuck up Latin and try English ; or, what is better than either, let us write home and ask father to come and see us, and ^then we can tell him to ask the Doctor.'

" And so it was settled, and the ultimate result was that we got the shed made over to us, and an advance of pocket-money to repair it ; and henceforth we had a terrestrial paradise of our own under lock and key.

" Luckily for us the other boys could not get near our workshop without going into the Doctor's garden, which garden was tabooed, as it contained a good assortment of

OUR WORKSHOP.

fruit-trees, wliicli would have been apt to shed their produce into the pockets of the pupils instead of those of the owner^ if a right of way had once been established. As for us two, we were put on our. honour, which boys as a rule observe a deal better than garden walls and fences ; and though we were not unconscious of raids by outsiders, which at any rate tended to thin out the fruit, we ourselves had no part in these predatory excursions, nor did "we ever consent to receive any share of the plunder.

*' Let me describe our workshop and its contents before I pass on to tell of the various works executed therein.

" Not, however, that all waS possessed at once, far from it ; and m;iny a treat did we give up, in which the rest of the boys participated, in order to obtain some much-coveted tool or appliance to add to our stock-in-trade. The shed, now weather-tight and clean, was about twelve feet long and ten wide, and was of ample height, and comfortably thatched. At one end was a window formed of an old cucumber-light, which we had picked up a bargain, and framed by laying it on its side, and securing it to a convenient beam which formed our window-sill. A similar window, formed of some neglected cottage casements placed side by side, and newly leaded, was fitted in one of the longer walls, and a padlocked door at the end gave access to the interior. We thought it would Iook. well to put a notice on this door of * no admittancb

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EXCEPT ON BUSINESS,' to wliicli was Subsequently added, to scare away passing tramps, ' beware of the bulldog,' an invisible mytliic animal, supposed by a pleasing fiction to be housed within. We tarred the whole of the outside of our workshop, dignitatis et honoris causd. A roughly-made carpenter's bench occupied the space in front of the side window, over which we fixed our rack for carpenter's tools, the squared and saws, and similar instruments hanging on nails, and the planes being ranged on a shelf above.

" In order to ensure tidiness and order, which we rightly believed of great importance, we agreed to fine each other for leaving tools out of place, or unduly damaging them ; and these fines, dropped fairly and faithfully into a money-box, were always expended upon new tools and materials.

" The first time we opened this box, which we did once every six months, we found ourselves able to buy a grindstone which happened to be for sale in the village, and had long been vainly coveted. It was a good stone, but most decidedly of a very eccentric character, as it had been badly used, and had a piece broken off one side, if a circular object has a side at any part of its circumference. However, we determined that our grindstone should at any rate not disgrace our workshop, and we therefore proceeded to correct it.

GRINDSTOA^ES.

^' Ktiocking- ont the already loosened wedges which kept the axle in place, we laid it upon its side on the floor, and drove also into the floor, through the square hole in its centre, a peg of wood cut to fit it easily hut closely, into the middle of which we inserted a bradawl, which was first passed through the end of a lath. Having found, by turning the lath round upon this bradawl as a centre, the utmost size to which the stone could be trimmed, we completed our beam-compasses by inserting a nail at the required distance, with which we easily marked a circle upon the upper part of the stone. We found we could still save the greater part of it, and obtain a grindstone fifteen inches in diameter ; the face, moreover, was rather more than three inches wide, quite sufficient for grinding our plane-irons, or even our light hand-axe. We then got a mallet and chisel on loan, and with much patience and care we managed to chip off little by little all that was outside the marked circle, and thus reduced our stone to shape, ready for mounting."

I may perhaps digress here to tell my young readers how the grindstones are cut from the quarries, as it is just one of those operations which the majority of those who buy and use these articles know nothing about. At the time of my young friends* purchase, in fact, I chanced to be staying at the Eev. Doctor's, and having the run of their workshop, I found them at work as above described.

and gladly gave tliem the information which I now suhmit to the eyes of the readers.

The stones ordinarily used by the carpenter are quarried in Yorkshire, and are called by the generic name of gritstones. There are, however, many other localities which produce them, notably Staffordshire, which supplies a quality, called Bilston grit, of a harder and closer texture than those of Yorkshire. The cutting powers of all these depend upon the particles of silica contained in their substance in union with the softer sandstone. The greater the proportion of silica, and the closer its particles, the harder and finer is the stone, so that a selection is generally made by the workman to suit his special requirements. The stone is got out in solid blocks, which are cut by chisels into cylinders of greater or less diameter, and of varying lengths. Around these at intervals deep grooves are cut, marking the several stones ultimately required, and into these are driven wedges of wood — generally willow, which bears a good deal of hammering, as boys used to cricket-bats ought to know. These are driven tightly into the grooves, and the whole is left exposed to the dews of night, which swell the wedges, and the several sections are in this way split asunder without further treatment. The rough surfaces are, however, subsequently worked to a more accurate face with the mallet and chisel, by which the square hole to receive the iron

OUR GRINDSTONE.

rtxle i? al.«o cut. The largest stones, made to revolve at a terrific speed, are used by the Sheffield cutlers for grinding large pit-saws and other tools, and also by stove and grate manufacturers and others for brightening their iron and steel work. When too small for this purpose, a bar of iron is held against them as they revolve, so as to cut a deep groove, and by means of wedges or chisels they are split into narrower or thinner sections, and handed over to the grinders of razors, scissors, and smaller articles.

Our young friends having to face up the stone which they had trimmed to a correct shape in the way already described, so as to give it a face sufficiently smooth for use, I was able to give them a " wrinkle " which they were not likely to have discovered for themselves. I shall, however, state their difficulties and experiments in the words of the manuscript from which I have already quoted largely.

*' It did not take us very long to heat the old and bent handle, which from bad usage and exposure had become rusty and out of form, and to correct its shape ready for use, but it took us a good deal of manoeuvring to wedge it centrally in the square hole of the stone. After some time, however, we arranged it to our satisfaction, our carpenter's square assisting us very materially in getting •it accurately fixed at right angles to the sides of the etone.

*' Our workshop having an earthen floor, we moniited onr grindstone upon two posts driven into the ground, driving two staples to keep it in place — a V2ry primitive metliod, which we subsequently altered to a better ; but it served our purpose for a long time, as it had no doubt served that of many others previously. Driving two other posts as a support, we placed a home-made water-trough underneath it, which we could easily remove ; and we also arranged a support for the tools, and to enable us to turu up and true the face of the stone.

" For the latter purpose we begged an old file from a friendly blacksmith, selecting the hardest tool we could think of wherewith to attack our friend, who had already proved to us that it was ' rale grit,' as the Yankees say, during our preliminary operations upon its substance. Although, however, we worked very patiently at our task, the file seemed to get by far the worst of it ; and although we turned it over and over as the edges in turn became blunted, we did not appear to make much progress in our work.

*' Whilst, however, we were thus engaged, our kind friend the surgeon who attended the school, and who had been called upon on one occasion to dress a very severe cut of my brother's, paid us a visit. After watching us a few minutes, he proposed to take a turn at the work himself, and rejecting the file, he picked up a bit

OUR GRINDSTONE.

of small iron rod that lay near, and to our surprise began to cut the stone at a far quicker rate than we had done with the hard steel, and very soon reduced it to a true cylinder."

This is worth recording for the reader's benefit, as no good work can be done on an untrue grindstone ; and the moment it is found to approach such a condition, it must be corrected or it will get rapidly worse. The reason for its untruth is sometimes that the stone is softer in one part than another; but very often it is the result of allowing it to remain partly sunk in the water in the trough, which renders that part more easy of abrasion in use than that which has been kept dry. The weight of the cranked handle always causes the stone to stop in the same position, so that the same part is invariably exposed to this deterioration and is never completely dry. The water-trough should therefore always be so arranged that it can be either lowered or wholly removed when the stone is not in use ; a still better plan, perhaps, is to have a drip-can with a tap above it, and to allow the water that runs from it upon the stone into the trough below to escape from the latter at once into a bucket. Our young friends learned all this in due time, but would have saved themselves many an hour's work in truing up their grindstone, if they had been told this and other trade secrets at the commencement of their mechanical career.

The reason that soft iron will answer for the purpose named better than steel, is supposed to be that it contains less carbon, and does not heat so quickly during the operation. It is at any rate a proved fact, and the best tool to use is a bit of small rod to turn down the stone, followed by a bit of hoop iron to give the finishing touch to the surface. The iron must be held firmly on a rest fitted for the purpose, pointing downwards, and the bar must be turned over and over as the upper edge gets blunted. It is at best a somewhat tedious operation, but absolutely necessary if the stone does not run truly ; and the only way to lighten the task is never to allow of any irregularity, but to correct at once the slightest tendency to eccentricity.

We soon found, says the narrative, the benefit of the hints given us by our good-natured friend, and henceforward we always kept a rod of iron and a bit of hoop on purpose for this work. Moreover, we learned to save the face of the stone by traversing the tool to and fro across it when grinding it, especially if it were narrow or pointed. The gouges gave us most trouble, but we eventually found it better to lay these across the stone, rolling them over and back again as the work proceeded, instead of holding them in the position of chisels and similar tools. Channels and grooves in the grindstone were, however, among the list of finable offences, and

TOOL-GRINDING. 13 until we got well used to the work, our money-box got thereby many an odd copper added to its treasures.

Another secret of tool-grinding was explained to us on a subsequent visit of our friend, who found us at work with the stone running from instead of towards us. It had appeared to us in our ignorance that this must of necessity be the right mode of grinding, because we fancied that if the stone were made to run as it were against the edge of the tool, it would blunt instead of sharpening it. We had, however, always noticed that a wire edge or thin flexible filament of the steel formed whenever we used the grindstone, whicii we had to get rid of by drawing it across a bit of wood before we could produce a keen edge upon the oilstone; and sometimes this would also form a second time upon the surface of the latter, which then needed to be wiped and cleaned before we could go on with our sharpening.

Our friend, however, told us that this wire edge was but the result of our mode of grinding, the stone tearinoaway the steel when it got very thin, whereas if we turned it towards the edge, the particles would be driven inwards towards the solid metal, and as it were compressed. This we found to be really the case, and thus we made a step forward towards a workman-like mode of sfrindino- our tools, and gradually learned the art of producing upon them a good and evenly-levelled edge.

H

BO Y ENGINEERS.

It must not, however, be supposed that the subsequent operation of setting them on the oilstone was acquired without a long series of failures ; for at first we rather blunted than sharpened them, and for any special work were only too glad to call in the aid of the village carpenter

Jraterion.

Pig. I.— Our Fii-st Latha.

or his apprentice to put our planes and chisels in working order. After long and careful practice, however, we triumphed over this difficulty, as we did over others of a more serious character.

POLE-LATHE. 15

Our great ambition was to possess a lathe, which we intended to stand under the window at the farthest end of the workshop. There were not at that period the same chances that subsequently existed of obtaining articles of this kind ; there were, indeed, a few firms in London ready and willing to supply them, but only at such a price as there was no chance of our being able to afford for many a long year. No " English Mechanic " or ^' Bazaar" or other periodical existed whose columns might offer to us a second-hand tool, and it became evident to us that we must contrive to make a lathe ourselves with such appliances as we could muster, and with the help of the blacksmith or old Tim.

The only advantage we had was the power of inspecting two lathes possessed by a chairmaker and by the carpenter. The former was what is called a pole-lathe, a very simple affair, but in the hands of Bill Birch the owner capable of a great deal of good work.

The rough sketch given in fig. i will sufficiently explain its construction as arranged in our own workshop, for it was this lathe which we ultimately decided to make, postponing to a future day the construction of a more serviceable one, after the pattern of Bob Chip's the carpenter. It will be seen that the bed of this lathe consisted of a pair of beams placed parallel to each other, and resting upon a frame at each end. We planed the upper surface of these ag well as we could, and the front of the foremost one for appe<arance' sake, leaving the rest rough. As the pieces were of beech, this was to us boys a formidable undertaking. We quickly discovered that beech was far more difficult to face up than deal, to which we had hitherto been accustomed. Oar long or "jack plane" sufficed to take off the rougher outside of the wood, but the grain did not run straight from end to end, but seemed to delight in curls and knots, which defied our efforts to reduce them to a smooth surface.

But here again our medical friend came to the rescue and showed us how to conquer the enemy. He pointed out to us that the mouth of our jack-plane being worn was too wide, and that the second iron, called the break-iron, which was fixed upon the cutting iron of the plane, was too far from the edge of the latter. To plane knotty wood, he explained to us that the mouth of a plane should be very narrow, the break-iron not more than one-sixteenth of an inch from the level of the cutting edge, and the latter set very fine — Le.^ only allowed to project a very minute detance beyond the sole. With a plane thus arranged very thin shavings are taken, which are fairly cut, and not split off from the surface of the wood ; but it is also necessary to work the plane in all directions where the grain is curly and uneven, so as to cause it to cut them lengthwise instead of across, After the surface has been levelled

LATHE DETAILS. 17

M'ith such a plane, called a tryiug-plaue, it is often necessary to go over it again with a smoothing-planej which is a very short one, carefully sharpened and set, as it is easier to work this in various directions than it is to do so with a longer plane. The latter, however, insures a more truly level surface.

On or rather between the pieces forming the bed we placed a pair of poppits, of which a spare one is seen upon the floor, showing, more accurately than tliose above, the tenoned part, with the mortise-hole by which they were secured in any desired position by wedges underneath the bed. Through each of these was a pointed screw, turned up to form a winch-handle by which to move it, and advance or withdraw the point. Between these was mounted the wood to be turned. Throuirh a hole about half-way up the poppits a square iron rod passed, whicli was bent to form a hook, and upon these rested a long board of beech to support the tools during the operation of turning. The upper Q.d<.gQi of this was level with the centre-points, and we could push in or draw out the hooks according to the size of our work. We afterwards found that this board troubled us by falling forward when in use, so we bored a hole in each poppit with an auger above that through which the hooked irons passed, and fitted in these a couple of bed-screws, which we got for fourpence ; and by screwing them to bear on the inside of the board, we kept it firnily pressed against the hooks and made it very steady.

The next consideration was the treadle and its fittings The treadle itself was only a board an inch thick, under which, at the part resting on the floor, we fixed two short spike? to prevent it slipping about when in use. From the farthest end a cord ascended, taking a turn round the work, and was fastened to the end of a strong ash pole, of which one end was fixed to the beams overhead, and the other was arranged to come over any part of the lathe. This we managed by putting a round pin through the pole about eighteen inches from its larger end, and driving this pin into a convenient beam, thus allowing the pole a horizontal motion on the pin. Then we nailed a stout bar just over the end of the pole, under which it was free to move, but which held it down securely against the tendency to rise from the strain of the cord at the other end. This pole, therefore, formed a strong spring, which raised the treadle off the floor when the pressure of the foot was relaxed, but yielded to that pressure when the treadle was i)ressed downwards. During the latter motion the cord caused the work to rotate several times towards the workman, so that a tool held against it would cut it freely, but as the pole sprang upward again this motion was reversed, and during that time the tool had to be withdrawn slightly, so as to clear the work.

INDIA. 19

Many an hour had we watched the old chairmaker turning at a lathe like this, and he certainly worked very fast, and with apparent ease; but it must be confessed that for some time we could do very little, for the roug-h pieces of wood caused the tools to hop about upon the bar which formed the rest, and we could not manage to advance and withdraw it at exactly the proper moment, so that our work was done but slowly, and was at best very rough.

Soon after we had finished this somewhat unique piece of machinery, our friend the surgeon paid us a visit, and gave us a very interesting account of the way in which turned work is managed by the natives of India, and also by the Africans and others. I give the account in his own words as nearly as I can recollect them.

" Soon after my arrival in India, where I was to act as an army surgeon, I had occasion for several turned articles ; for though I liad practised carpentry, I had never tried my hand at the lathe. I wanted some legs to complete a small table, and some rounds for a chair back ; a leg of my pocket camp-stool was also broken, and needed to be replaced by a new one. At first I proposed to round my pieces as well as I could with a spokeshave, as I had no idea where to obtain turned ones; but Captain Fellows, an old friend, seeing me thus employed, suggested sending for a turner, who, he told me, would do all I wanted for a

BOY ENGINEERS.

sum amounting in English money to fourpence. ' But, my dear fellow,' I replied, ' I have no lathe, and there is not one, I believe, in the place ; so that it is no use to send for the turner, even if such could he found amongst these woolly-headed black-skins.' ' Wait a bit,' he replied, ' {ind you'll soon have lathe and workman too ; ' and addressing a few words in Hindostanee to one of his native servants, the fellow salaamed and hastened off.

" Returning in about twenty minutes, he was accompanied by a native carrying a small adze in one hand, and a bag of matting in the other, containing all requisites, as I soon found, for his work. Taking a couple of long wooden tent-pegs, he bored a hole through each with a native drill in a few seconds, and drove into them a couple of pointed nails or spikes. He then with a mallet hammered them a short distance apart into the ground, placing them just so far asunder as the length of the table leg he prol)Osed to turn. The pegs stuck out of the ground perhaps nine inches. These were the poppits, and the solid ground, which was dry and hard, as it generally is in hot countries, was the lathe-bed. Two more tent-pegs were driven, and a straight-edged board nailed to them at the proper height to form the rest, and the lathe was so far complete, the whole having been arranged within ten or twelve minutes. I had seen a pole or chairmaker's lathe similar to that which you boys have now made, but I. v/as