Since I have used tools ever since I was old enough to hold a hammer I can easily tell you just how you should handle them but to become a skilled workman you must be willing to do the rest and that is to practice.

How to Hold a Hammer

When you use a hammer, grasp the handle a couple of inches from the free end and hold it so that it will swing freely and easily in your hand and keep your hand and wrist above the level of the nail or whatever it is you are pounding; this takes the jar off of your arm and makes the work of using it surer and less tiresome. Never use a hammer on wood-work of any kind.

When you use a mallet as for driving chisels hold it rather close to its head, and need I tell you never to use a wooden mallet to drive nails with.

How to Use a Saw

Hold the wood to be sawed with your left hand - I am taking it for granted that you are righthanded; put all of the fingers of your right hand through the hole in the handle of the saw with your thumb on the other side and grip the handle firmly.

To start the saw put it on the mark where you want to saw the board and rest your thumb against the side of it to guide and steady it. Stand so that your eye will look down the back of the saw and don't hold it too straight but at an angle of 45 degrees, that is half way between the horizontal and the vertical. Of course this does not apply to a back saw or a keyhole saw.

How to Use a Plane

Since a smooth plane has no handle lay your right hand over the tail of it and rest your left hand on the nose of it. Make short, quick strokes, pressing down on the plane as it goes forward and letting up on it a little as you draw it back.

A jack-plane has a handle on it something like a saw-handle and it is held like a saw with your right hand. If there is no knob on the nose of it hold it by laying your left hand across it. When using a jack plane give it a long stroke with even pressure and you will take off the same thickness of shaving all the way along.

How to Use Chisels and Gouges

To hold a chisel properly when cutting a groove grip it a couple of inches below the top of the handle with your left hand. Hold it with the beveled edge down from you and at a slight angle from the horizontal when making grooves, and at a slight angle from the vertical when cutting a mortise. Gouges are used in the same way as chisels.

How to Use a Brace and Bit

Set the sharp pointed end of the bit on the exact spot which is to be the center of the hole you are to bore. Hold the top handle of the brace with your left hand and the crank handle with your right hand. Have the top of the brace and the bit in a line with your eye and after you start to bore sight the bit on both sides of the hole you are boring to see that it is plumb - that is straight up and down.

How to Use a Rule

A carpenter's rule is two feet long and divided into inches which are sub-divided again into 8ths and 16ths of an inch. In making measurements for joinery use the rule accurately or you will have misfits.

How to Use a Marking Gauge

This is a useful device to mark off one or more parallel lines on a board when one edge of it is straight.

The head slides on a wooden bar near one end of which is a steel point. The bar is graduated, that is, it is spaced off in inches and fractions of an inch like a rule and this makes it easy to set the head at any distance from the steel point.

When you have set the gauge hold the head against the edge of the board you want to mark, press the steel point against the surface and draw the gauge along with both hands when the point will scratch a line.

How to Use Hand Screws or Clamps

Put the pieces of wood that are to be held together between the jaws of the clamp and screw each screw up a little at a time so that the jaws are kept even, that is parallel.

How to Use a Nail Set

A finishing nail, that is, a nail having a head only a shade larger than the shank, is used for the finer kinds of woodwork. After you have driven in a nail until its head is within, say, 1/8 inch of the surface put the small, hollow end of your nail set on it, hold them together with your thumb and forefinger and drive it in by hitting the nail set with your hammer. After the head is sunk below the surface of the wood fill in the hole with a wood filler when neither the nail nor the hole can be seen.

How to Use a Gimlet

After you have started a hole with a gimlet give it a complete turn and then half a turn back each time, for by so doing it will be far less liable to split the wood. Moisten the point of the gimlet and it will go in easier.

How to Drive Nails and Screws

Put a little common brown soap on the ends of nails and screws before you drive them in and you will find that it greatly lessens the friction.