Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/339

 The Home Workbench

���Avoiding Dangerous Stair Turns

THE turn of an ordinary narrow staircase is so sliarp and the steps at the inner part of the turn so nar- row that a person in a hurry is likely to stumble and fall. The danger of injury can be considerably reduced by construcing the stairs with the steps

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���The usual way of building stairs (Fig. A), and the more intelligent scheme of widen- ing the inside steps at the turn (Fig. B)

wider at the inside of the turn. To ac- complish this, more steps must be allowed for making the turn.

Instead of the usual sharp right an- gle, each succeeding step should be cut at an increasing angle, so that double the number of steps are re- quired in constructing the turn. By a comparison of the two drawings, it is readily seen that the breadth of the step on the inside of the turn meant comfort and safety in a narrow passage.

A Dustless Ash Sifter

THAT unhappy Saturday morning task of the small boy — sifting ashes — may be brightened to some ex- tent by a comparatively dustless ash sifter. Certainly, a device of this sort will be welcomed by the housewife,

��who listens with consternation to the grating sound of the ash-sifter, fully aware of the disaster that powdered ashes wreak on lace window curtains and polished wood work and furniture.

The dustless ash sifter consists of two boxes, one for sifting the ashes, the other for receiving the waste. The lower box is large, and fitted with a sliding door at one end for removing the ashes when it is filled. The upper box is nailed over a long hole in the top of the other, and is provided with a hinged cover. At one end of the small box a hole is cut to admit the handle of the sifter. The sifter, itself, consists of a fiat wooden frame, made box shaped, from four narrow boards. It is open at the top and screened at the bottom.

The ashes are placed in the sifter, the hinged top is closed, and the handle is moved back and forth. Unusable ashes fall into the bin below; clinkers and unburned coal remain on the screen.

���A packing box, properly adapted, becomes an excellent dustless ash sifter

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