"Nil mortalibus ardui est!" A quote from Horace, lifted from this week's cover story. Loosely: "nothing is impossible for humankind." A grand reference to Prometheus in service of a magnificent article on an early electrical device. Shamelessly, I'm reappropriating the quote in service of some practical instruction found elsewhere in No. 134. Not wishing to take away from the construction of the Winter Electrical Machine, it nevertheless bears being said we receive much more inquiry on the subject of scraper sharpening.
Along similar lines, I'd like to call attention to this helpful entry found in this week's "SHOP." Figuring out insanely flat curves might not come up very often in your shop, but when it does you'll know to reach for these methods. The trick in Figure 4 strikes me as being the most useful for smaller work. -T
Disclaimer: Articles in Work describe materials and methods that would not be considered safe or advisable today. We are not responsible for the content of these magazines, and cannot take any responsibility for anyone attempting projects or procedures described therein.
The first issue of Work was published on March 23rd, 1889. The goal of this project is to release digital copies of the individual issues starting on the same date in 2012, effectively republishing the materials 123 years to the day from their original release.
The original printing was on thin, inexpensive paper. There are many cases of uneven inking and bleed-through from the page behind. Our copies of Work come from bound library volumes of these issues and are subject to unfavorable trimming, missing covers, etc. To minimize harm to these fragile volumes, we've undertaken the task of scanning the books ourselves. We do considerable post processing of the scans to make them clear but please bear with us if a margin is clipped too close, or a few words are unreadable. We would like to thank James Vasile and Karl Fogel for their help in supplying us with a book scanner and generally enabling this project to get off the ground.
You are welcome to download, print, and pretty much do what you want with the scan for your own personal purposes. Feel free to post a link or a copy on your blog or website. All we ask is a link back to the original project and this blog. We are not answering requests for commercial downloads or reprinting at this time.
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