Preface
The scope of this book embraces
practically the whole art of working metals with handtools and
with such simple machine-tools as the small engineering shop
usually contains.
The tool outfit of the average
metalworker does not generally include anything more ambitious
than a lathe with or without slide-rest, overhead motion, etc.,
and it is with this limitation in mind that the whole of the
contents of this book have been prepared. Even within such
limits, the scope is extensive, and has been made to include a
large and pleasing variety of work.
In attempting to present a graded
course of instruction, difficulties have been encountered which
were absent in the preparation of the companion volume "The
Handyman's Book of Tools, Materials, and Processes Employed in
Woodworking”.
The practice of metalworking has been split up
into so many branches, and these have been so sub-divided, that
a number of distinct trades has been created; and the tools and
processes of one trade often have but slight relation to those
of another.
In face of this fact, it has been
found impossible to arrange the work in a series of exercises
gradually and successively increasing in difficulty and in the
skill necessary for their performance.
The book chiefly conforms to
another arrangement - that by which the tools and processes are
described in their natural sequence; thus, after a brief
introduction giving particulars of all the known metals, the
book opens with a section on foundry work, the basis of all
modern metalworking.
This is followed by a section on
the art of the blacksmith, and then come detail descriptions of
the tools and processes by which the rough surfaces left by
casting and forging are chipped, filed, scraped and polished.
Succeeding sections deal with annealing, hardening and
tempering, drilling and boring, followed by screw threading with
taps, screwplates, and dies.
Of
the greatest importance is the section on soldering, brazing,
and riveting, in which an attempt is made to impart a sound
knowledge of the whole of the processes in general use.
Three sections on the manufacture
and ornamentation of sheet metal ware include instructions on
pattern drawing, cutting out and shaping, seaming and jointing,
wiring and beading, repousse and oriental decoration, and it is
believed that the section on repousse work forms the most
complete treatise on the subject yet published. The finishing,
lacquering, and coloring of brass is a subject that follows in
natural sequence.
The second part of the book
introduces work of a different kind, and considerably more than
a hundred pages is devoted to lathes and lathework; all the
necessary appliances for and the general processes of chucking,
hand turning, slide rest turning, using revolving cutters,
spinning and knurling are described in plain language and fully
illustrated.
Engineers' tools for setting out,
measuring and testing, are illustrated and described in the next
section, and then comes the first of the more important examples
- a serviceable 4-1/2 in centre lathe with slide-rest - in the
construction of which much of the information given in previous
chapters is applied.
Later examples include a skeleton
clock, small horizontal and vertical steam engines, boilers,
petrol motor, water motors, a dynamo and electric motor, a
microscope and a telescope.
These are all the subjects of clear
working drawings and minute practical instruction. Among
miscellaneous branches of metalworking dealt with at the end of
the volume are gold and silver working, electro-plating, wire
work, electric bell making, etc., etc.
Actual practice is recorded
throughout this book and the discussion of theory has been
allowed only when it is an essential preliminary to
understanding the principles underlying a method, a process, or
the action of a tool. The examples of work have been adapted
from existing articles, and the columns of “Work," one of the
journals it is my fortune to edit, have been drawn on freely.
The illustrations have been
prepared regardless of trouble and expense, with the full
consciousness of their value in showing at a glance what pages
of letterpress would fail to convey. Many of the engravings show
metalworkers' tools and appliances, and in this connection
special acknowledgment must be made to the following firms for
their great help in kindly having lent electrotypes illustrating
modern tools and appliances of approved design.
