There should be another case with shelves 10 inches wide for holding steel wire brads and wood screws. There should be shelf room enough to show at the front one package of each size that may be used.

Several other packages of the same size may be piled behind the front one as reserve stock. These cases should not be much over five feet high, and arranged against the walls in such a situation as to be most out of the way and yet convenient for the men to get at. They should be built of ⅞-inch boards. The shelves for any articles as heavy as wood screws, brads, or steel wire nails should be supported by uprights about 30 inches apart.

These cases should have two coats of light shellac varnish. It is always best to have these and all similar fixtures present a neat and clean as well as orderly appearance. It will have a good effect on the workmen and they will take more interest in their work and have more respect for the shop and its management to realize that all these matters relating to their wants are foreseen and properly attended to.

All patterns should be so colored in the varnishing as to show the material of which they are to be cast. To effect this all core prints should be red. Patterns for gray iron castings should be block ; for malleable iron castings, brown; for steel castings, blue; for brass castings, yellow; and for bronze castings, orange. These colors may be easily made by the addition of vermilion, lampblack, burnt umber, ultramarine blue or chrome yellow to ordinary shellac varnish.

The colors should be purchased in a dry state and cut with a little alcohol before being added to the varnish. The brown and blue may need to be made a little lighter in color, which may be effected by adding a little dry white lead, cut with alcohol as before. To make the orange, add a little red to the yellow. This method will save a great deal of needless trouble and annoyance from patterns being cast of the wrong material, as colors will always appeal to the eye, and are more easily remembered than any written, printed, or oral directions.

The pattern loft should be so arranged that the groups of shelves are located between the windows, projecting out from the walls so as to form alcoves or passages between them about four feet wide. The best form of shelves will be those supported in the center, near each end, by a vertical standard of wrought iron pipe, set in a cast iron base resting on the floor. Fixed at proper heights on these pipes are cross bars of cast iron, upon which the planks composing the shelves are supported. This leaves the edges of the shelves clear of any obstruction, greatly facilitating the handling of patterns.

A similar arrangement of shelves may be made with wooden vertical and cross supports, the former being fastened to the floor below and the overhead timbers above. Space should be provided on the floor, or on low supports, or a low platform, for large and heavy patterns, so as to have them in a convenient position for handling. Overhead tracks and trolley hoists may run through the center of the pattern loft for convenience in handling large patterns. They may thus be handled very quickly and economically.

In storing patterns in the pattern loft, those belonging to one machine should be confined to one section or group of shelves as much as possible, the larger ones on the floor or the lower shelves, and the smaller ones on the upper shelves. The name and letter of the machine should be plainly marked on a strip nailed to the front of a shelf four or five feet from the floor. If different colors are used to designate different machines, or types of machines, these signs may be painted the same colors, for convenience in finding such patterns as may be wanted.

The patterns for machines of the same general type should be grouped in one part of the loft, occupying adjacent groups of shelves, if necessary to use those of more than one group. Patterns for castings of malleable iron, steel, brass, and bronze should be kept on one of the shelves in the same group as those for gray iron castings. If special shelves for all the patterns for any one of these materials are kept together there is more liability to mistake in sending the proper ones to the foundry.

The foreman should have a record of the location of all patterns in the pattern loft. The system which will be found to require the least amount of writing and will be the easiest to keep correct from day to day will, no doubt, be the card system. To render this system useful there should be a card for each pattern, and written upon it the letter designating the machine, the number of the pattern, its name, and a list of all loose pieces that should go with it. These cards may be of ordinary cardboard stock, cut 3×4 inches and requiring no printing or ruling. The cards representing the patterns of each machine should be grouped, as for instance, an engine lathe, divided into such groups as the bed, headstock, tailstock, carriage, etc., and these groups separated by guide cards, which may be cut 3¬ × 4 inches, with these designations written on the exposed quarter of an inch. Such a guide card will stand more hard usage in constant handling than those cut with the usual small tabs.