Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

aioCAMPING AND WOODCRAFTWith good wood, already bolted, an experiencedhand can turn out about one thousand clapboards,or four thousand shingles, in a day. Experts dobetter.Clapboards, although slower to make than shortshingles, save time and labor in the end, becauseof their extra span, and because they can be naileddirectly to rib poles running lengthwise of the roof,whereas shingles require strips of board or flattenedpoles laid across rafters and close together. Therib pole construction makes a prettier gable endthan the usual way of boxing up the gable withboards, because courses of logs are carried all theway up into the peak. Sawed boards break rusticefifect.Shingles.—However,ifshingles be preferred, they,too, can readily be madefrom the green tree. Thesehand-made shingles, if finishedby shaving smoothwith a drawing knife, aresuperior to the mill product.To make them, a largeFig. 5Z— t^^^ ^^ chosen, and theDouble Bolting cuts are double bolted (asfor Shingles jn Fig. 52). Since thesides of the outer bolts are almost parallel, the unshavedshingles will be of nearly even thickness onboth edges. In riving shingles the bolt is turnedend-for-end every time a shingle is struck ofE, andthe shingles are allowed to run out a little so asbe thinner at one end than at the other.A rude but efficient shaving-horse is shown in Fig.53. My partner and I made such a one in an hourout of a chestnut log, a dogwood fork, two sticks forlegs, and a hickory wand. The log (A B m Fig. 53)Is flattened on top to the rear of C. The far endrests on the ground and the near one is elevated onlegs to such height that a man sitting in front of itwill find A at the level Qfjiis elbows. The clampto