HSS: See High Speed Steel.
Half-round: A rounded convex
member of a molding; half of a circle.
Source: Home Craftsman 4
January-February 1935 page 124
Hammer: [under construction ]
In the gray shaded box below is the
advice given to wannabe woodworkers in 1930 by Arthur
Wakeling. In the 1938 preface to
Things to Make in Your Home Workshop,
Wakeling notes that for almost two decades -- taking it
back to 1918? -- he has edited the Home Workshop
Department of Popular Science Monthly
and "five years in directing the
National Homeworkshop Guild ". (Be aware that the
book itself was written in 1930 by Wakeling and several
figures prominent Industrial Arts, including Emanual E
Ericson, Herman Hjorth, William W. Klenke, but that
Wakeling wrote the book's preface is written in 1938.)
For additional details about the manual, Things to
Make in Your Home Workshop, click on the link
above.
HINTS ON DRIVING NAILS
Hammer and nails are in common use in every
household. Yet driving nails, the
commonest of all mechanical operations, is
not often done in such a way as to get the
full holding power of the nails. A few
plain facts about nails and their uses
would, if they were carefully observed by
the amateur woodworker, decrease the
difficulties encountered and save much
effort and subsequent disappointment the
failure of joints.
The proper way to hold a hammer is the
first important thing to learn. The
amateur has the natural feeling that the
less of the handle he uses, the less likely
he is to miss the nail. The truth of this is
not borne out in practice, however, forafter
one has become accustomed to holding the
hammer handle at the end, as shown in Fig.
8, he will miss the nail if he tries the
former method. It is safe to assume that the
manufacturers of any good hammer know
something about the best length of handle to
use.
The angle of a nail hammer or the "hang" of
it will have to be sensed from experience.
It will not take long before a person will
automatically hold his hammer handle just
low enough as the hammer strikes the nail.
Source: Arthur
Wakeling, ed. Things to Make in Your
Home Workshop New York: Grosset and
Dunlap, 1930, pages 45-46
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Hand Plane:
see Plane
Hand Saw:
Hand Tools:
under construction 5-8-08
The Civil War period marked a turning point in tool design, as it did for so much Americana. Before that time, the word tool meant an implement that could make one thing at a time; mass-production tools then entered the scene, and the word tool, which had meant only "hand tool," took on many added meanings. Finally the word tool came to mean any item having to do with the production of an item; it could be the machine and also the building that housed the machine. Even the salesmen, the advertising gadgets, and the business offices are "tools of the trade."
Generally speaking, hand tools made after the Civil War period lacked the simple beauty of those of the ante-bellum period. Things were made to sell quickly, things were made in large quantities so that they could be catalogued identically, and hand-made implements began to disappear. Wooden handles became "fancier," more curved and ornamental, but the severe beauty of folk art and primitive usage was lost. Saw handles became "trickier"; they were designed to appeal to the eye instead of to fit the hand. Axe handles, which had always been almost straight, as a good club should be, took on curves such as the "fawn foot" and the "scroll knob." By 1885, handles on axes and adzes had become almost too curved, but by the 1900s they settled down to a sensible and standard design, such as that of those you can buy now at the hardware store.
Source:Eric Sloane, A Museum of Early American Tools New York: Ballantine Books, 1964, page 5
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Hardwood/Softwood:
Hardwood comes from a deciduous tree, Oak, Walnut, etc.,
ie, trees that shed their leaves each season. Softwood
comes from Evergreen trees, trees that are green all
season. The terms HARDWOOD and SOFTWOOD do NOT refer to
the firmness of the wood.
Headstock:
THE RIVETT BENCH LATHE
... with some of its attachments, ...has been patented in the United States by Mr. E. Rivett. —The lathe
is intended for the finest work done by tool-makers, electricians, and
machinists, and is highly finished all over, including the bed and
feet. The headstock, spindle, and bushings in which it runs are of tool-steel, hardened,ground, and lapped, the spindle
being 2 1/4 in. in diameter and the bearings 2 1/2 in. long. The end of
the spindle is threaded for face-plates or chucks, and there is a
draw-bar which extends through the spindle for holding split chucks, ... the rods extending through the spindle, which has a hole through it ... Fig. 3 shows the quill used in milling,.....
Source: English Mechanic and World of Science No. H31. Ano. 26, 1892.
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"Heart"-Side:
(see p. 228 of Paul
Nooncree Hasluck, 1891.)
High Speed Steel (HSS):
Often abbreviated as HSS. Material
used to make Jointer Knives, Shaper Cutters, Saw
Blades and Router Bits. Not as Hard nor as brittle as
Carbide.
Home Mechanics: [Term is used as early as 1886. Need to find out
how it morphed into a sort of masculine version of "home
economics". At some point in its history, woodworking
for boys is an explicit component.]
[draft 1-24-07- following adapted from johnson and
newkirk] In the FOREWORD to their 1953 book, Home
Mechanics, William H. Johnson and Louis V.
Newkirk write that it has been prepared for use in
teaching home mechanics to boys and girls. The home-care
jobs and projects have been carefully illustrated and
the instructions written in step-by-step procedures.
Questions have been provided to emphasize important
learning concepts. Section below is an an adaptation of
John and Newkirk's Foreword.
The objectives of Home Mechanics are to:
- give consumer knowledge and skill about
selecting and using of the products that are a part
of home living.
- develop handy-man abilities with the ordinary
hand tools and a variety of construction materials.
- teach the use of handcraft for leisure-time
activities in the home.
- contribute to the development of the personality
of the child and to further the social objectives of
general education. Home mechanics courses offer
students opportunities to work as a member of a
group or to assume responsibility for leadership.
The book treat five instructional units: (1) electricity
in the home, (2) utensils and appliances, (3) plumbing
and heating, (4) doors and windows, and (5) care of the
home and garden.
Units contain consumer information, instruction for
care and adjustment of home appliances, and equipment
and craft projects that relate to the respective unit.
The authors claim that boys and girls who master the
information and learn to do the manipulative problems
the text explains and illustrates can cope with the
everyday problems of home living.
Home Shop Movement:
Horse Power (HP):
an important consideration for
woodworkers, By definition 746 watts. (about 7 Amp on a
110V source, 3.5 Amp on a 220V source). More later in HP
then and now.
Horizontal Mortiser: A
useful power tool not popular today with amateur
woodworkers, which is a pity. (The vertical mortiser
is gaining in popularity, however. [more later about
horizontal mortiser assemblies a feature of 1930s
combination tools designed for amateur woodworkers.]
image on left of horizontal mortiser from Popular
Science's 1941
Giant Home Workshop Manual
Household Art: A movement in
middle-class home decoration in the late nineteenth
century directed toward bringing "art" into the home.
According to the material culture scholar, Martha
Crabill McClaugherty, "The phrase 'household art' was a
generic term used throughout the last thirty-five years
or so of the nineteenth century when referring to almost
anything connected with buying or creating furnishings
and decorations for the home."
It was primarily
disseminated through books and articles
written by tastemakers who believed that
the home interior could exert moral
influences and be a place for optimizing
individual, amateur expressions. These
writers sought to establish an artistic
standard for the home that would be in
harmony with the recently industrialized
society of the late Victorian era.
... The writers
themselves did not use a consistent
terminology; they used "household
taste," "art in the house," "household
beauty," "interior decoration," "house
furnishing," and "domestic decoration"
as synonyms. [McClaugherty] chose
"household art" from among these many
phrases because it elucidates the
over-all concern for an aesthetic
approach to home interiors.
Source: Martha
Crabill McClaugherty "Household
Art:Creating the Artistic Home,
1868-1893", Winterthur Portfolio
18, no 1 (Spring 1983), page 1.
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Sources: Martha Crabill
McClaugherty "Household Art: Creating the Artistic Home,
1868-1893", Winterthur Portfolio 18, no 1
(Spring 1983), pages 1-26
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