Utilitarian Moxon vise.

Re: answer?

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

But what about a larger board?.....something that approaches a blanket chest side for example. Add to blanket chest, toy chest and the top and bottom of Period case pieces, all involving large dovetailed panels. I don't see the difference from a drawer.

.if that moves, we have a problem yes indeed. But why will making with a marking knife move it. This operation is so easy to get right most will soon wean themselves from using clamps.

Related, I don't see a need for me to build a vice to hold these wide panels. I don't do them more than a time or two a year. They are stiff enough to grab with a bench vice and saw. The vice seems to me to only be attractive for thin drawer sides.

Re: answer?

roger lance

The marking knife will not be the cause of the tail board moving..... more than likely you (the craftsman....the maker) will be the cause.....you don't have perfect muscle control.....perfect balance......and the likelihood that you will (eventually) not be able to complete a large, long mark out of a sizable panel before you inadvertingly shift it slightly is high.

No one is telling you to include this feature....or any other feature for that matter.....make it your way.....as large or small as you wish.....as fancy or plain as you want.

I enjoy watching YouTube videos of Ishitani Furniture.....he doesn't use a Moxon.....but, when he is marking out his pin boards, he has everything well clamped down.....there is no chance for any movement of his tail board.....and he is taking his time to carefully mark out his work....and he is using both hands to do this.....I guess we could be critical of him.....or maybe learn something.

Re: answer?

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

Bill, you are I have enjoyed good exchanges over the years, and I always look forward to your posts. We all have our preferences - mine probably stand out like a sore thumb - and I know that you do not spending money unnecessarily. However, what constitutes "unnecessarily" varies from person to person, as do levels of perfectionism (I raise my hand here).

There is a perfectionism range when it comes to 'getting the job done'. This is not necessarily a comment on psychopathology, but may reflect an interest in a specific furniture style or fashion.

Also, there is a skill range when it comes to the involvement with hand-related skills, such as dovetailing. Moxon vises and all the gear that we have been posting lately cater to both these groups.

My knee-jerk reaction is that when tools/fixtures are criticised, and this is done with such conviction, everyone - regardless of the reason they are used - experiences this as a personal criticism on some level. I know that I do (and, yes, I know I must get over it).

Regards from Perth

Derek

What does "unnecessary" mean

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Training wheels are unnecessary once you learn to ride. And they get in the way. But they may hasten learning to ride. They could even encourage one to want to try riding. They might even be necessary for some to get started to ride. But if they were never invented most would wind up learning to ride and this fact is worth considering.

As so it is with woodworking. If I claim "unnecessary" I am saying from my experience that most, if not all, can achieve success without the training wheels. The bold will be encouraged to jump right in without training wheels and probably get proficient quicker without the training wheel step. Others may consider the possibility that someday they will abandon the training wheels and ditch them sooner than they might. Some may not "ride much" and keep the training wheels to accomplish their goals.

I don't have any means of clamping a tail board. I never considered the possibility so I just learned to mark as I have describe and as I see ever professional I have observed do it.



Early in my dovetailing I made this oak trunk. Oak is hard to dovetail. I never considered the possibility of clamping so I didn't. I can do flauntable dovetails when they show. None of these have any sort of repair. I despise the deceit. When they don't show I don't take much pains to make them Gallery Grade.

Re: What does "unnecessary" mean

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

Bill, you do exemplary work. No one would question that. I certainly aspire to the standards you set. However, you also do more building than just about anyone here, and assume that all will develop in the same way.

Now I am all for growth of skills and put this ahead of a continued reliance on aids, and hope that my record speaks to this. I am not disagreeing with you in encouraging others to greater heights. I am simply stating that your comments of late have been quite caustic. Work holding should not develop into such a big issue. It is really quite trivial and some here are just having a bit of fun with it as well. Perhaps I am being unnecessarily sensitive?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Utilitarian Moxon vise. (added some clamps)

William Duffield

…or you can make your own handwheels, if you have some thick, dense hardwood and a lathe. I've made more than one pair, and they work almost as well as the Benchcrafted. Of course, which is the right way for you depends on your personal balance between skills, time, and money. I have posted several notes, pictures and dimensioned drawings on the hand tool forum (as has Derek), which you can find by searching Google with the WoodCentral url, my name and pertinent key words, e.g., moxon or handwheel.

One example: http://www.woodcentral.com/woodworking/forum/archives_handtools.pl/bid/3001/md/read/id/458097/sbj/moxon-vise-handwheels-finished/

A dimensioned drawing:

http://www.woodcentral.com/woodworking/forum/archives_handtools.pl/bid/3001/md/read/id/458140/sbj/handwheels-dimensions/drawing:

Re: What does "unnecessary" mean

Don Stephan

I agree with everything Derek has said. We all benefit from your contributions, and I hope you will continue to share, with a bit less harshness.

How one gets over it...

John in NM

"My knee-jerk reaction is that when tools/fixtures are criticised, and this is done with such conviction, everyone - regardless of the reason they are used - experiences this as a personal criticism on some level. I know that I do (and, yes, I know I must get over it)."

No one likes their fixturing preferences to be referred to as training wheels, but I've found it useful to get past the irritation of the delivery and evaluate the content.

I get to do a lot of this at the day job and I usually find that the irritating statement makes a good point. I also usually find that my irritation with it is a red flag - I'm irritated not by the choice of words so much as having my attention directed to a weak point I had preferred to overlook indefinitely.

You are right that taking such criticism personally is the most common immediate reaction, but I rarely find that the criticism was intended to be so personal.

I am bewildered by some of your repsonses

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Did I say anything not factually correct? If so, lets discuss what. If not, what's the fuss about?

Expect more "unnecessaries" when they are called for. If those that made the effort to enhance a vice, that in itself is unnecessary, took offense at my posts I will clarify. Nothing I posted was directed to you all. I don't care how you spend your time, nor mind that you share how you spend your time.

So what do I care about? What was my motivation for posting "unnecessary"? It was assuredly not to criticize how others spend their time. Again, I don't care. What I do care about are those woodworkers that are highly motivated to build furniture and haven't settled on exactly how they are going to go about it. These people are the audience for my posts. I hope to offer them advice that I have found useful or that I have seen other successful furniture builders employ. Period. I'm not getting paid (though I have on occasion paid a lot for what I have learned) and I am not using woodworking to burnish my place in the world.

The proof is in the pudding. We offer alternatives. The folks actually building stuff will soon figure out what of the alternatives works best for them. I'm ambivalent whether my advice is found best for each particular situation. I hope you won't see me getting my shorts in a knot if someone says there is a better than how I advise how to do something.

there is nothing to get over

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Some seem to have confused offering alternatives with personal criticism.

It must be tough being.....

roger lance

the Don Rickles of woodworking.

So, lets see your Moxon already.

Roger says, "lets see your Moxon already."

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Well......There was deer hunting, Christmas tree fetching (cedar from pasture and it is 8' diameter. Plenty of branches for ornaments!), land auction (should have brought my checkbook), EarthLink crash with infection of my desktop, Christmas cookie making, daughter visiting, finding wood otherwise useless enough for shop furniture, leaf raking, epoxy curing....... Oh, and there was the small set back of mortising the nuts in and then gluing this vertical board to a base reversed .

And BTW, I am unlikely to come up with a better way of marking dovetails than the holder you put me on to years ago. There is no problem holding the tail board and everything is assured to be in one plane. It took son in law 5 min to make me a bigger one with his box joint cutter. I still suffer from the trauma of once making a short drawer and it not setting flat on it base because it was marked out of plane. No effort is spared to avoid a repeat of this trauma.

Life goes on.

What you all have been waiting for- Moxy Vice

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

My superior Moxy vice. It is so radically improved I gave it a new name. Goaded by Roger I retired to the shop and finished it, more or less.

Note the extra feature- a cross bar under the custom turned knobs. Its function is to take up bolt space for the 6" bolts that were glued to the knobs instead of the 5" bolts shown. This error falls on roger who caused me to rush the completion.

No doubt it will be further refined, but for now: It raises the height of the work 6". No more stooping or even kneeling on the floor to saw. That is a significant improvement. The jaws of the vice have been aligned with the scribe line. The jaws now provide a reference to stop the saw cut. I need to live with this feature to see if it is useful. The work is held securely with no vibration when cutting-essential. It works conveniently so long as a 3rd hand is available to hold the spacing bar in place while knobs are tightened.

The Moxy vice was cheap and easy to build. I think raising the work will result in my using it.

PS Farmers have square nuts so difficult hexagonal mortises are unnecessary.

Be Still

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

my beating heart!! I need wait no longer.

Not being a farmer, my nuts are hexagonal, but I don't think it'll be a problem. Can't say the same for them square knobs, but we'll see.

Re: Utilitarian Moxon vise. (added some clamps)

Don Stephan

Very kind of you to share an excellent drawing.

Re: Be Still

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Can't say the same for them square knobs, but we'll see.

Roger was pressing me for a picture of the competed vice and I didn't have time to turn them all the way down to round.

Actually, I was inspired by Grace screw driver handles

Sure

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Here I'm thinking you'd invented some gizmo to actually defy the laws of nature and physics to turn square stuff on a lathe!

Re: Utilitarian Moxon vise. (added some clamps)

William Duffield

You're quite welcome. I have several pictures as well, but they are scattered around on several threads in the hand tool forum, over a few years. Note that if you use 3/4" Acme thread hardware instead of the 3/4" UNC that I used, one or two dimensions will need to be adjusted, because the Acme thread nuts are larger. The hardware will also cost you at least twice as much, but still a small fraction of Benchcrafted hardware.

I'm afraid I'm not nearly as good (or at least as consistent) at documenting what I've built as Derek Cohen or Bill Tindall. I think what frustrates me most is the arcane methods we need to employ to shrink the pictures down to 100 K.

I haven't done it yet, but I have the hardware and other materials out in the shop to add a handle to each of the hand wheels, like the Benchcrafted add-ons, or the cast iron hand wheels on my milling table and cross slide vise. Maybe I'll get out in the shop tomorrow to experiment.

Re: Third Hand Unnecessary

William Duffield

I have found the third hand unnecessary if I position the work all the way to one side of the jaw and lightly tighten the nearer knob, so it holds the work when I let go, but not so tight that I can't easily pull it free. I then slide the work to the other end and tighten the other knob (now closer to the work) tightly. This technique probably works better with a longer jaw.

When you get around to cutting half blind DTs, you will probably find you would like the top front of the front jaw beveled for clearance. There is a trick for that too, which keeps the level top of the jaw for paring. Make sure that the holes for the threaded rod are placed vertically centered in the front board. Then all you need to do is flip the front jaw over to change from through dovetails to half blinds.

Re: What you all have been waiting for- Moxy Vice

roger lance

Bill....you've mentioned a few of the things that I find appealing about a Moxon.....raising the work .....don't have to stoop over as much.....better visibility of the lines (old eyes you know)......and the fact that you can modify it as you like to fit your style of working.

Wouldn't it be ironic if you began to use a small clamp as a third hand to hold that spacer bar??

Re: What you all have been waiting for- Moxy Vice

William Duffield

don't have to stoop over as much

You wouldn't have to stoop over at all if, instead of clamping it to the top of your bench, you bolted it to the front of one of these metabenches…

…using hardware like this (or BenchCrafted's kit):

Make it any height that feels comfortable. If you make it too tall, just cut a bit off the bottoms of the legs. I prefer to be able to just rest my elbows on the top of the bench when standing upright with my arms resting. Another savings is you only need one jaw. The front of the metabench and whatever you clamp that to serves at the rear jaw of the Moxon vise.

Funny.......

Mark Hennebury

If you mark the dovetail pins and tails out accurately, and cut them accurately, they will fit together precisely.

It seems to me the only reason for transferring the tails after you have cut them, is that you can't mark them out and cut them accurately in the first place.

Re: Funny.......

Virgil Johnson

It seems to me the only reason for transferring the tails after you have cut them, is that you can't mark them out and cut them accurately in the first place.

Precisely. uh I mean accurately. Either or I can't mark and cut the joint out well enough to make them go together with out transferring.

It dawned on me.....

Barry Irby

that I already own a Moxon vice. If I were to take those finger things off my Leigh Dovetail jig....Voila! it is a Moxon vice. Now if I could just figure out a way to mechanize the process of cutting dovetails???? A router maybe????

I could simplify it even further and remove the top clamp that seems to bother some people.