Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Re: I'm in awe - as always!
William R. Duffield, on the Cohansey
>Maybe to match the heads on Marples Blue Chips? Maybe a minor career redirection for some mortar and pestil makers? Brand differentiation?
Really, I have no good idea of any advantages they would offer. I really don't think I would have any more difficulty learning to use one of those than one of the ones I made, as long as the top is flat, so it won't roll off the bench.
Re: Minor setback and stuff that works *PICS*
William R. Duffield, on the Cohansey
>I had an idea for a simple leg carving clamp that I thought might work in a face vise. I went out last night and prototyped it. Alas, it doesn't work well enough, at least not in my face vise and with the dimensions and materials I used, to recommend it to anyone. I've included it with some other strategies that do work. Hopefully, someone can make use of it, or can offer suggestions for enhancements. It does not have enough strength and it's not easy enough to adjust the position of the work.
Central photo, which requires a patternmaker's vise (Lee-Valley's Tucker Vise recommended) shows custom wooden insert vise jaws in an Emmert clone. Like the other tricks, these jaws have a pair of v-shaped slots, that allow me to work with each corner positioned vertically. I find it difficult to get a symetrical shape if I'm working square to the leg post. With the patternmaker's vise, I can also swing the leg out away from the bench, and work all the way around it. For carving a claw and ball foot, support is needed under the ankle. I'm using a mallet head. This is what I do in the shop.
Top left shows a simple method for using either a face vise, or a tail vise. With the fase vise, you need access to the full depth of the side of your bench. This is a pair of custom built jaws for a Jorge hand screw, again with a pair of v-shaped slots. With it, you can vary the height of the work, and even rotate the handscrew in the vise. This is what I do when I'm away from the shop, because I can clamp the handscrew, using another one, to a post or a fence or a sawhorse.
The two photos on the right show the half-baked, but really cheap, idea that doesn't work yet. It again uses a pair of jaws with v-shaped slots, and 3/4" dowels glued into holes in the bottoms of the blocks. I tried to mount these in a pair of opposed dog holes in the front and back vise jaws. They allow the leg to move around too much. I have a couple of ideas that might help. First is a poppet with a point on it, to drop into one of the front dogholes and engage the bottom of the foot. The second idea is to radically the geometry of the jaws to something that drops down between the face vise jaws, and works like a saw vise. Maybe, the dowels could be used to position the auxiliary jaws when pressure was not applied. We're looking for more ideas here.
Re: Developing a Meta Tool Set
Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia
>Sir Will...It seems our illustrious friend shows signs of having too much time on his hands;-)JR
Re: Minor setback and stuff that works *PICS*
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>Thanks, William, these look really cool, especially the Jorgensen with Vs cut out, very simple solution, I think I have one pair big enough, will give it a try.
Pam, who knows she still owes you a report on Dastras and Pfeils
Re: Developing a Meta Tool Set
Paul Brandley
>William, Thanks for the nudge, I was overdue!