WOODEN tents such as I am about to describe, are in use by the
contractors who are building the western extensions of the Denver and
Rio Grande Railway in Colorado. There are no towns there ahead of the
railway, and it is necessary to provide sleeping-quarters, provisions
and eating-houses, for the engineers and road-makers. It is therefore
needful to have a style of building which can be put up and taken down
easily, and, above all, which shall be capable of transportation over
the frightful mountain roads. The result, it seems to me, might be
useful to bevies of boys, to schoolmasters and pupils, and to families
who camp out every summer for some considerable time, and really
need to take to the woods a house somewhat better than a cloth tent,
where they can live in warmth and comfort, and which shall be a cosey
headquarters for storing supplies, and to which they may return. My
object now is in these papers to instruct our young home carpenters
how during their winter leisure to get one of these comfortable wooden
tents in complete readiness for summer transportation. It can be done
very cheaply; if you can improve on it, so much the better. For my
part, I have never seen or heard of the like anywhere else, though I
believe that circus sideshows sometimes have a far more cumbersome
arrangement answering the same purpose.
Boys might club together, not only to own such a portable house in
common, but to build it—a jolly way of spending Saturdays in some
great wagon-house or tool-chamber where there is a big workbench and a
good tool-chest.
This movable house consists wholly of wood except the roof, which is
canvas, and the floor, which is dirt, unless you choose to plank it.
It may be made of any size you see fit, it only being necessary that
all the parts are adjusted to the scale decided upon. The dimensions
I give, however, are measured upon a plan twelve feet square, because
that happened to be the actual size of the one nearest to me. The
railway men generally join from two to half a dozen of these together,
end to end, making a long and commodious building. A half-dozen
congenial families could do the same, insuring endless good times
in the forest solitudes. One twelve-foot length is then known as a
“section.” If you would rather have an oblong figure, make your ends
shorter and reduce the length of your rafters; or, if you don’t like
the pretty low pitch of the roof which my measurements imply, lengthen
your uprights and rafters to suit your own ideas of the right angle.
Now for my details:
The walls of your tent-house, six feet in height, are to be made of
inch-thick matched flooring twelve feet long. They should be No. 1
pine, best quality. Fasten these firmly together, to the width of six
feet, by three dressed cleats, six inches wide, one at each end and
one in the middle, and do this on both sides. Make three of these
platforms, or walls, which will furnish three sides of your house. For
the fourth side make a similar platform nine feet in length, filling
out the remaining three feet with a door.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.]
This door swings _out_, and the hinges should be very strong,
preferably of the kind used on barn doors, so that it can be lifted off
its hanging with ease, and so that the long shaft of the hinge will act
as a support to prevent undue sagging. An arrangement must be made to
lock this door. It can easily be secured on the inside by a bolt, and
outwardly by hasp and padlock.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
There remain, now, the peaks or gables at the ends, to be provided
for. Many of the railway men get their roof canvas sufficiently large
to come down and cover this, but I think a better plan would be to
make two triangular platforms of boards, fitted to your peak, cleating
them together just like the lower walls. Then place about four flat
staples in the outside of your end walls, and let iron hasps bolted
to the lower edge of your peak boards drop into them. This would hold
the bottom of the peak and the top of the end wall squarely together.
In addition to this a couple of bolts should pass through the upright
and be secured by nuts, so as easily to be unscrewed. (_See fig. 14._)
There should be no middle cleat on the inside of the gable. The general
character of these walls appears in several of the illustrations, but
the cleating is shown in _fig. 1_. Screws should be used throughout
instead of nails. The woodwork remaining to be shaped, consists of
the uprights, or centre-poles at each end, the ridgepole, rafters and
braces.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
The two uprights in my model were 8 feet and 9 inches in height; a
greater length would add pitch to the roof. These uprights should be
made of clear, firm stuff, 4 inches by 2, and should be thickened
at their lower ends by adding pieces of similar size, as shown in
_figures_ 2 and 4. This upright stands inside of the wall, and
edge-wise. Into its upper inner edge must be set two iron “eyes”
having an inner diameter of three quarters of an inch. (_See fig. 3_).
The uppermost of these is placed about two inches from the top of the
stick, and the second six inches below. These eyes should pass clear
through the timber and be held by nuts on the other side. Six feet from
the bottom of the upright, a hooked bolt should be passed through the
timber, the hook facing outwardly, and having enough space between it
and the wood to allow the wall to come between. Its purpose is to hold
the end wall snugly to the upright: therefore it must be loose enough
so that it can be turned up while the wall is being put into position,
and then turned down to clamp it firmly, as in _figure 4_.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
Having made both uprights alike, you now turn your attention to the
ridgepole. This ought to be somewhat heavier than the uprights, two
by six scantling being none too strong for the strain which the weight
of your canvas and an occasional gale of wind will put upon it. It is
twelve feet long, of course, and six inches from each end will have
an iron pin 18 inches in length driven through from its upper side,
intended to go through the eyes at the top of the uprights. This is
shown in _fig. 5_.
On each side of this ridgepole screw in four stout staples or eyes,
one at three inches from each end, and the others at equal distances
between; to these the rafters are to be attached. (_See figs. 3 and
5._) Similar staples must be placed an inch below the upper inside edge
of the side walls to contain the irons at the lower end of the rafters,
as in _fig. 6_; of course, therefore, it is necessary that the staples
in the walls should fall exactly opposite those on the ridgepole.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
The rafters themselves, eight in number, may be made of the same sized
stuff as the uprights, or lighter, if a tough wood like elm or ash is
used instead of pine; and each will be 7 feet and 4 inches long unless
you want a pretty steep roof, in which case you must lengthen them
somewhat. To the underside of the upper end is fastened a strong curved
hook, which hangs in the staples on the ridgepole (_fig. 5_); while to
the lower end is fastened a pointed iron three inches long, and set at
such an angle that it will stand vertical in the eye on the wall (_see
fig. 6 next paper_) when the rafter is in place.