Читать книгу The Handyman's Book of Tools, Materials, and Processes Employed in Woodworking - Paul N. Hasluck - Страница 191

A glue brush can be bought for a few pence. If the hairs are too long the brush must be tied to make them shorter as far as their action is concerned. Start by placing the twine as in Fig. 489, and then bind it tightly round the hair until the brush is sufficiently short; finish off by passing the end of the twine through the last two coils (see Fig. 490) and drawing tight, and then turn back the loose ends and secure each of them with a tack (see Fig. 491), to prevent the ends slipping down. The brush should not be put into glue until ready for use, and, when finished with, should be washed in hot water. The following is a method of keeping glue brushes in good condition. Fix a stout wire across the pot in one of the ways already described. By pressing the brush against the wire to free it from superfluous glue, the sides of the pot will always be clean, the glue will heat quicker, and no material will be wasted. It is a good plan to cut away one side of a small-sized screw-eye to transform it into a hook, and put it into the handle just below the ferrule, or about 2 in. from the bristles; the hook holds the brush on the wire clear off the bottom of the pot. A brush left to rest upon the bottom of the pot quickly becomes too crooked to use. Fig. 492 illustrates a brush that has been spoilt in this way. The bristles refuse to stand in the proper position, and it is useless for particular work. The following is a method of improving the brush, though a tool in such condition can never be made to work thoroughly well. First remove the glue by washing, then hold the bristles in very hot water for a few minutes and refill the brush again with glue; get a strip of old rag, and, holding the brush as shown in Fig. 493, wind the material round the entire length of the hair, and secure the end by tying twine round tightly. The bristles will now stand erect, and the brush is put aside and the binding allowed to dry hard on it; in the course of a day or two the brush may be held in hot water and the binding peeled off. Once doing is not enough if the tool is in a very bad state, but after the same process has been repeated several times it is usually in good workable condition. Glue brushes are so cheap, however, that it is doubtful whether the result is worth the trouble. An effective glue brush can be made out of a piece of common cane, and the cane brush is preferred by many competent and practical workers to any other. Take a piece of rattan cane about 8 in. long, cut away the flinty skin for an inch or so at one end, soak this end in boiling water for a minute or two, and then hammer this till the fibres are softened and loosened, the only care required being not to cut them off while hammering (see Fig. 494). Such a brush will last a long time—in fact, as long as there is any cane left from which to hammer out a fresh end.

Fig. 488.—Household Glue-pot.