Now that you know about tools and the properties of metals there are a few other little things which, if you will bear them in mind, will enable you to make nearly anything you want to. The first has to do with drawing and the others with working the metals themselves.

First Sketch Your Ideas

To start out and try to make an object which you have in mind without sketching it on paper first so that you can see just what size to cut and shape it, and how it will look when you have finished it, is the first step toward being a disappointed boy.

When you get an abstract idea for a design or a machine that you want to put in concrete form take a rule and compasses, pencil and paper and draw it out to scale, that is, make a drawing of it and mark the sizes, or dimensions, of each part just as it should be when the thing is done.

By roughly sketching the object, or, better, by making an accurate working drawing of it before you do anything else you will save time, patience and materials.20