Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/82

sides of cach stick should be cut away to a depth of three quarters of an inch, and the small end of the stick may be tapered slightly. The sideboards,

A Shoe-blacking Box. of three-quarter-inch wood five inches wide, are screwed fast to the top of the legs.

A bottom sixteen and a half inches square is fastened inside the frame, where it is held in place with steel-wire nails driven through the lower edge of the sideboards and into the edge of the bottom all around. Four brackets are fastencd with screws at each side, under the side-boards, and a cover is hinged to the box; it is prevented from falling too far back by a chain attached to the under side of the lid and to the inside of the box. Over the front edge of the box bend a strip of zine, and tack it fast to both the inside and outside of the front board. This will prevent shoes from chafing the wood away, and is easily cleaned when muddied by dirty shoes.

A few thin coats of olive-green or light-brown paint will add to the appearance of this shoe-blacking box; and the owner should take pride in keeping it clean, and the brushes in good order.

IX. A Chair.

The construction of a chair is perhaps as interesting as anything in carpentry. and a plain chair like the one shown in the illustration can easily be made from soft or hard wood, the joints being all open and simple to cut, as you can see by looking carefully at the drawing. The legs are two inches square, the seat is sixteen inches square and eighteen inches high, and the back posts are thirty-six inches long. The front and back posts are cut out, as shown in Fig. 17, to receive the crosspieces that bind the legs and back together. These strips are two inches wide and three quarters of an inch thick. The side strips are two inches up from the floor, and the back one is four inches high, while that at the front is let into the rear of the posts, and its lower edge is eight inches from the floor. The seat is made
A Chair.from matched boards, and the back is ten inches wide, made from a single board, and all the joints are glued and screwed together. Chairs that are made in shops have the joints doweled or mortised and tenoned; but the lap-joint is much the easiest and strongest one to make if the cuts are accurately sawed, and if the cross-pieces fit the laps so snugly that a mallet is necessary to help drive the strips home. The seat and back of this chair can be covered with denim, leather, or other suitable fabric drawn over some curled hair or cotton that can be used for padding, and fastened down around the edges