Nails come in certain standard sizes, and the following are recommended for most work:

Wire-nails-(wide, flat-heads) 1", 1/2", 2", 2/2"

Finishing nails-("brads," with very small head) 1", 11/4", 2", 21/2"

Box of assorted small wire nails and brads.

You will also use, at times, wood screws, in the small and medium sizes. It is rather more fussy, building things with screws instead of nails, but there will be places where screws will do a better job, as mentioned in later directions.

Screws are of various kinds, the most usual varieties being flat-head and round-head. Flat-head screws are used where it is necessary to have the head flush with the wood after the screw is driven in. It may even be important to countersink a screw a little below the surface if it is desirable to conceal it entirely with plastic wood. The round-head screw may often be used effectively where it would be desirable to have it show, in which case brass round-head screws look very well.

All screws are started by driving a shallow nail-hole which will engage the thread of the screw, and in hard wood it is necessary to drill the entire hole with a drill of slightly less thickness than the screw.

Sandpaper And Glue

You will find sandpaper a very important aid in doing neat work, and you should never be without it. It comes in grades No. oo to No. 2, and you will use No. oo and No.11/2 for most work.

All slight roughness in lumber should be sandpapered smooth, the "whiskers" left on all saw-cut ends should be sandpapered off, many edges of shelves are better if you slightly round off the sharpness with sandpaper, and you will always sandpaper the plastic wood with which you fill nail-holes after you have driven your nails a little below the surface with the nail-set.

Minor bits of sandpapering may be done with a small piece of sandpaper in the hand, but if you are doing a lot of it, as perhaps surfacing a board, you will do well to practice the carpenter's trick of wrapping a piece of the sandpaper around a small block of wood. This saves wear and tear on the hands, and makes it possible to exert much more pressure more evenly with less effort.

When you are making furniture of a more or less permanent nature you will often want to use glue in addition to nails or screws. It simply makes a better and tighter joint and keeps joints from working loose, particularly where there may be any strain on them. In all factory-made furniture of any quality at all the joints that take any strain are both glued and screwed.

Ready-mixed liquid fish-glue is the most convenient for the home shop. It is always ready to use and sets slowly so that you have plenty of time to get the joints together properly.

Boiled glue, as used by regular furniture and cabinet-makers is somewhat more fussy, but does a job that holds like iron. It is a flake animal glue that comes in pieces resembling rather dark peanut brittle. These you cover with cold water and leave to soak four or five hours, or overnight. They are then placed in an iron double-boiler glue-pot, with water in the lower part, and put on the stove until the glue is hot and melted. It should be applied hot, and the work firmly tied or clamped in place. Boiled glue seems like a great deal of trouble, and often is-but after you get it cooked up and ready for use you have glue. With all the ritual involved, it is a good plan to mobilize everything in the house that needs to be glued so that you can make the most of the occasion. Barring earthquakes or air raids, anything that is stuck together with boiled glue is likely to stay stuck together. You may not like the smell of boiled glue-but consider the good you can do with it.

Casein, or cold-water glues, come in powder form and are simply mixed with cold water according to directions on the box. This glue is water-proof and should be used on any outside work.

Lumber

The softwoods commonly used (and they are the choice for easy-working) are white pine, cypress and poplar (which is also called whitewood).

White pine comes in two grades: No. i (clear) which has no knots. Being selected stock it is more expensive, but well worth the difference for any permanent work, such as furniture. No. 2 grade is often used for shelving, or wherever knots don't matter too much. Knots, of course, are particularly distressing in painted work, because the paint acts differently on the knots than it does on the side-grain. Some No. 2 white pine runs fairly free from knots, and if you can select it yourself it may answer for most shelf-work, particularly in closets.

White pine is soft, strong, paints excellently but does not take oil stains evenly.

Hard yellow pine (often used for flooring) is as different from white pine as can be, and is not the type of wood you want to play with.

Cypress has practically no knots, is soft and easy to work with. It does not take paint well, but is ideal for oil-stain finishes which bring out its beautiful figure.

Poplar works much the same as pine. It has no knots, takes paint or stain, but has no figure. It is largely used in making drawers and the smaller partitions and things like sliding trays in the interior of furniture.

The average costs of these woods run from ten to fourteen cents per board foot. The dimensions by which lumber is sold are explained a few paragraphs later.