In the way of tools it is surprising what you can do with a hammer, a saw, a square and a plane. It's handy to have a few other tools but not absolutely essential, and they may be added to your kit as you grow more ambitious and come to appreciate their usefulness.

A hammer is just a hammer to most people, but hardware stores are more technical, and the all-purpose hammer has a 16-ounce head. There are various kinds of saws, but the general-utility one has a 24-inch blade, with eight teeth to the inch, hence called 8-point. It is a cross-cut saw, not a rip-saw. The difference is in the way the teeth are filed and set, and it is to be hoped that you will be able to avoid "ripping" your lumber, which simply means sawing it the long way of the piece, taking an 8-inch wide board, for instance, and cutting an inch off its width, along the whole length. It is a tedious proceeding, and one that can generally be avoided by figuring the needed dimensions of your lumber in advance, or slightly changing a design to conform with stock sizes of lumber.

One of the most important tools in your minimum kit will be a square (an eight inch one is large enough for most work) because nothing you try to make will go together properly, if at all, unless all the cuts are absolutely square. It may well be that failure to make square cuts is the principal reason for the botchy, not to say cockeyed, appearance of much improvised carpenter work. There is no substitute for a perfect right angle, and if every cut you make exactly follows a true pencil mark along the steel edge of your square, much unhappi-ness will be saved later, when you come to assemble your handiwork. Never guess at the mark-off on any piece of lumber you cut, in the hope that it will be "near enough." When you are dealing with true right angles there is no such thing as "near enough." A cut is either a right angle or it isn't, and Me of an inch off is enough to make a bad joint.

(By the way, let us start right in now with the customary designation of feet (') and inches ("), as, for instance, 2' 6", in the interest of greater simplicity, and to make it easier when you read dimensions on working drawings and figured sketches.)

Your next essential tool is a ;jack-plane. Without it there can be no bevelled edges, or many other minor niceties of finish. Add two screw-drivers, one 3/16" with a 3" blade, the other, 5/16" with a 6" blade.

A small but very important tool is a nail-set, which (in case you never heard of one) is something like a punch, and is used to drive finishing nails1/16", or less, into the wood, leaving a small, shallow hole which is filled with plastic wood and sandpapered flush-thus concealing all otherwise exposed nail-heads.

Last, but by no means least, a folding two-foot rule; for measuring, as we shall presently see, is of the essence of even the simplest job of carpenter work.

Listed as desirable, but not essential, are the following: A 7-ounce tack hammer, a brace and set of bits, as listed below, a compasssaw, a 3/4" chisel. The brace and bits may be more recognizable to the non-technical eye as an "augur," and you bore holes with it, according to the size of the bits, which are adjustable in the brace. And if you have a brace, you ought to have, also, a "counter-sink," which will ream out the top of a screw-hole so that the head of a flat screw will be flush with the top surface into which it is driven.

The compass-saw is a small saw with a blade sufficiently narrow to cut around curves of about 2" radius, and even smaller, and is useful for various other bits of close work that may be necessary in notching a board to fit some special condition. Not infrequently you may be faced with some fussy little cut that could be made only with a compass-saw.

The miter box, at the foot of the list, is a necessary addition if you mean to cut moldings or other pieces with an exact 45-degree angle to fit or make a square corner, like the corner of a picture frame. (45° + 45° = 90°-and 90° is a right angle). A detailed drawing in Chapter XI (Getting Ambitious) will give you a clear idea of what a miter box is, how it is used-and why.

For better visualization a list is now given of the tools enumerated above:

Necessary

16-oz. claw hammer Cross-cut saw, 24", 8 teeth to inch. 8" square 13/4" jack-plane Nail set

Screw driver 3/16" x 3" blade Screw driver x 6" blade 2' folding rule

Desirable But Not Necessary

7-oz. tack hammer

Brace and set of bits: (11/4",

5/16", 1/2", 3/4", 1")

Compass-saw chisel (which would be in the "necessary" list if you are fitting hinges or doing certain other operations shown later)

Miter box

With these took now clearly in mind (or, better still, in hand) nails and lumber are next needed before the dream-creation can become a reality.

Nails And Screws

Nails are sold by the pound or fraction thereof, and are so ridiculously inexpensive that it isn't necessary even to quote prices. An idea of kinds, however, is important, for you will mostly use "finishing nails," or "brads," which have a head only a little larger than the nail itself. These, of course, make neater work, and when sunk with the nail-set, leave a very small hole to be filled with plastic wood. French nails, or wire nails, have a wide, flat-head, and should be used only where the heads won't show, or in such work as making packing boxes or putting up cellar shelves. Most of the lumber you are likely to use will be approximately thick, in which you would use i Yz" or, where extra strength is needed, 2" finishing nails. If you are nailing moldings or thin wood, a shorter nail is naturally the choice, down to . Because the wide heads hold better, and don't show, you would use small French nails for putting backs of masonite or plywood on bookshelves or cupboards.