It's Fun To Build Things | by W. T. R. Price
This book teaches you how to make all kinds of shelving, window seats, cupboards, closet-fittings, and simple pieces of movable furniture. You can amazingly multiply the conveniences of your house, often improving its appearance and have fun doing it.
| Title | It's Fun To Build Things |
| Author | W. T. R. Price |
| Publisher | New York Crown Publishers |
| Year | 1941 |
| Copyright | 1941, New York Crown Publishers |
| Amazon | It's Fun To Build Things |
Foreword- The first thing you have to overcome before you enjoy the fun of building things is the notion that you must have some sort of special skill. Another alibi frequently used is the lack of an elaborate ...
- Chapter I. What You Do It With
- 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...
- What You Do It With. Part 2
- 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,...
- What You Do It With. Part 3
- The hardwoods are ash, maple, plain oak, mahogany and walnut. These woods are not as easily obtained as the softwoods, and are much more difficult to work. You may find them fairly easy to cut up, but...
- Chapter II. Before You Start Sawing
- Strange as it may seem, the first thing you need to know before you start building anything is just what you are going to build, and how you are going to build it. Many people overlook this, and find ...
- Before You Start Sawing. Part 2
- The method of putting guide-marks on the upright shelf supports-and a close-up of nailing technique. But now let's have a try at nailing the shelves in from the outside of the side pieces. First la...
- Before You Start Sawing. Part 3
- Now to place the shelves in their position-and all will be well unless you made the fatally easy mistake of figuring the shelves and cutting them to the width of the recess, forgetting to subtract the...
- Chapter III. A Few Easy Ones-To Start With
- Already we have had a sort of dress rehearsal of the building of a simple set of bookshelves in a recess. One advantage of a recess is that its sides support the whole structure of the shelves, and ke...
- Chapter IV. Shelves In General
- One thing is certain about shelves, wherever or however you build them. Make them a little stronger than necessary. There are too many amateur-built shelves that barely sustain their own weight and ca...
- Shelves In General. Continued
- The bathroom is another problem, and the more so when it is very up-to-date, with lots of tile and no place to put anything, except a medicine cabinet, designed, one would say, to hold two razor bla...
- Chapter V. Cupboards
- We might as well start with the easier kind, which are built in wall-recesses. Here the location is an advantage, because the side walls hold our creation up. When we build a freestanding cupboard we ...
- Cupboards. Part 2
- At this point the question of hardware arises, because these doors must have hinges and some sort of a fastening. Hinges are of two main types-the kind that is fastened to the surface of both jamb and...
- Cupboards. Part 3
- Here it would be well to decide whether this is to be one of these sleek, moderne pieces, or something along the older lines. If it is to be modern, you would turn the side panel frames in to the in...
- Cupboards. Part 4
- Unit seven is a design to use as a desk, fitted up with whatever you may fancy in the way of pigeon-holes, or even small drawers, the front to let down on two lengths of brass chain. You would make th...
- Chapter VI. Boxes And Chests
- It's a handy thing to know how to make a box for heavy stuff like books, and know that it will get where it's going all in one piece, even when it's been slammed around by movers, and dropped off a tr...
- Boxes And Chests. Part 2
- Now for chests that are to be pieces of furniture. Of course the better-looking ones need wide, expensive lumber, but serviceable chests may be built with end and front pieces made with the same techn...
- Boxes And Chests. Part 3
- The following is the simple technique to be employed in mounting any kind of paper on wood panels. You want it to lie perfectly and smoothly flat, and you don't want it to peel off or buckle up. It is...
- Chapter VII. Window-Seats
- The window-seat is no thing you are likely to build in an apartment, even if the landlord would let you. You would hesitate to tie up that much labor and material in building something you may have to...
- Window-Seats. Part 2
- It seems we said something in the table of contents about doubledeck bunks for extra sleepers. They are certainly a helpful addition to any kind of a camp or week-end hideaway, and are also in high fa...
- Window-Seats. Part 3
- Now for the rails, or 2x 4 pieces that run the length of the bunks. Here, again, you must work to the dimensions of the springs you have bought, figuring 11/2 (31/4 at each end) leeway. These rail...
- Chapter VIII. Benches-And Other Things
- For the making of anything in the nature of benches, which need to be strong, it's best to use 1 lumber, or 11/2 ,if you can stand the cost. Heavier lumber not only looks better in furniture, but na...
- Benches-And Other Things. Part 2
- A mirror top cocktail table, and technique thereof. Plate mirror, or clear plate glass (under which you could put a fabric or a map or anything else you fancied)-1/8 thick, is surprisingly strong-y...
- Benches-And Other Things. Part 3
- A trick development of one shown is done by extending the uprights to about 20 and making a shelf wide enough to let in an ash tray and cigarette box. (A job for the compass saw, and careful cutting ...
- Chapter IX. Closet Fittings
- We have already covered a little work in die closet, but there are still a few things we might do to enhance its convenience. Foremost among these is the slanting shoe rack, which does away with sh...
- Chapter X. Folding Screens
- There's no particular trick about making folding screens, and there are several ways of doing it. For joining them to open either way, you need to get double-acting hinges, here sketched. The di...
- Folding Screens. Continued
- These are some of the techniques in which a bold, flat design may be executed by resorting to montage, either as the whole technique, or in combination with paint. The obvious advantage of montage is ...
- Chapter XI. Getting Ambitious
- In our earlier adventures with hammer and saw we went through the motions of constructing framed doors and side-pieces for chests and cabinets and cupboards and put off the question of moldings until ...
- Getting Ambitious. Part 2
- From the advice given above it should be fairly apparent that here is certainly one place where you need to be extra careful. If, by now, you aren't in the least discouraged, let's have a try at makin...
- Getting Ambitious. Part 3
- Don't be discouraged by this seemingly foreboding account of drawer-making. Drawers will come out very satisfactorily if they're made carefully, and will vastly enlarge the scope of your handiwork in ...
- Chapter XII. Trick Stuff
- It's fun to have a concealed bar, but the cost of most of the ready-made ones takes a lot of the fun out of it for many of us. So it might be more fun to build one yourself, and if you have followed t...
- Trick Stuff. Continued
- The matter of secret compartments and such is often one of improvisation. When you are building any kind of a cabinet, cupboard, window-seat or chest there's always an easy chance to fix a false back ...
- Chapter XIII. Painting And Finishing
- It may not be a consoling reflection, but it's well to remember that even if you build something so neatly and smartly that you surprise yourself, you can have it look like a botchy homemade job if yo...
- Painting And Finishing. Continued
- Brushing Lacquer This is a very fast-drying finish, a comparatively recent product, made in a range of attractive colors. It has a cellulose base, and its quick drying feature makes it a little tri...
- A Portfolio Of Suggestions In Picture Form
- Here are a few sketches offered as suggestions. You can change any of them to suit your fancy or your skills. No really difficult or elaborate techniques are needed to build any of the things. No dime...
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