the easy or difficult pattern that is to be cut. The frame that holds the block or bar of wood between the pivots can be shortened and lengthened by a sliding bar in the bed of the lathe.
Automatic or self-regulating lathes are called "copying" lathes, because they copy patterns set for them, making millions of chair legs and stair spindles exactly alike. They work very much as the keys of a piano; player are moved, by little knobs catching in the holes in the long paper rolls. You know you could play one tune over and over until the roll was worn out. Of course the carving chisel is held and moved by machinery too.
All that the "turner" workman has to do today is to feed the machine with the wood blocks and shift the belt from one wheel to another. This is true in all kinds of factories. Less and less skill is needed in the workman and machines do the work of dozens and hundreds of men. Of course this gives us more things to use, but hand-made furniture and shoes and clothing and pottery is still the best. Beside lathes for turning rounded articles, there are lathes for boring holes and for making pegs by which parts of furniture are held together. There are lathes for cutting grooves, and for "dovetailing," or tooth-notching the ends of boards that are to be joined to form boxes and bureau drawers.
In woodworking shops a very important tool is the planer for smoothing sawed planks. A carpenter lays a plank on a bench and uses a hand-plane or a draw-knife to peel off long, white, sweet-smelling curly shavings. In the factory the bench is a travelling table that carries the board under the chisel-blade of the planer. Then, as a carpenter sandpapers a board that must be made very smooth, so there is a machine for sandpapering. It is a broad travelling belt or drum coated with emery, or steel dust. It whirls over the planks and leaves them as smooth as satin.
The very first tool that a tree makes acquaintance with when it is to be turned into lumber, is just a woodman’s axe, and then a cross-cut saw, both worked by hand. A man who knows, from the look of a tree, whether it will make good lumber or not, goes through a forest that is to be cut over, and marks the trees that should come down by cutting chip from the trunk. After him come the sawyers and choppers. In our big American forests lumber camps are set up in the winter, with an army of men and horses. There is a man cook for the camp, and a blacksmith, and there are sledges and derricks and an armory of saws, axes and iron chains.
