Mechanik Exercises question

Re: Mechanik Exercises question

Warren in Lancaster, Pa

>My first thought was that P was just the holfast, but the thing it holds could be a saw vise. It looks like there is a groove in the board that the holdfast holds to the bench and that there is a wedge on the side of the saw that we can see that secures the saw teeth up in the groove. Notice that the "wedge" piece extends slightly beyond the main board on the near side and the far side. The saw seems to stick up a little high for sharpening, but that may be just the artist.

I have used a homemade saw vise that was put in a face vise. I think this looks like a better method.

Good eyes Warren!

Stephen Shepherd in the State of Deseret

>I had not noticed that the small piece of wood next to the blade extended beyond the block held fast with the holdfast.

So I got out my looking glass and took a closer look. The block also extends under the blade, the back side obscured by the blade of the turning saw. There is a saw wrest on the page so you are probably correct.

That particular illustration has always intrigued me, answers at last.

Thanks again Warren.

Stephen

Re: Good eyes Warren!

Warren in Lancaster, Pa

>It would be nice if someone could blow up this picture and post it. I lack the equipment and the knowledge. The more I think about it the better I like this device, although it would only work for the narrow frame saw blades. There is a clearer picture in Blackburn on page 148. He calls P simply "Frame Saw" (page147), not explaining why it is in such a peculiar position. Note that M N and O are saws, P is vise and Q is wrest. It would be nice if R were a file, but it may be some kind of bevel gauge.

Re: Good eyes Warren!

Stephen Shepherd in the State of Deseret

>Not a great pic but this is from Mercer's book.

Stephen

Re: Good eyes Warren!

Don McConnell

>Stephen, Warren et al,

In the legend for Plate 4, "Q" is, indeed, identified as "The Saw Wrest" (though it is misidentified as being marked "O"). "R" is identified as "The Mitre Square."

To return to the original question, "P" is misidentified as "The Whetting Block, or Rub Stone."

To help reenforce that Warren's identification is correct, I've turned to the illustration in Felibien upon which this Plate, in Moxon, is based. I'm attaching a small portion of the Felibien illustration below. The legend for this illustration includes: "H. Entaille pour limer les Scies." My high school French has long since faded from memory, but I think this translates, roughly, to "notch/slit for filing saws."

Don McConnell

Eureka Springs, AR

Clever

Bill Houghton, not so sunny Sebastopol, CA

>Not only does it save removing the blade from the saw, but the saw frame keeps the blade in tension so it should flop around less under the file.

Those mechanicks were paying attention.

The Work Bench itself

Wiley Horne

>Don,

Are you able to show Felibien's or Moxon's plate of the 'Workbench'--Fig. A on Plate 4 (upper right in Moxon)? Stephen's graphic shows this bench, but your version is more crisp, if it is available.

One thing that is curious to me about the Work-bench--and I think worthy of some discussion--is the double-screw vise, and its flexibility in use, as described by Moxon.

Moxon says, p. 65, "Sometimes a double Screw is fixed to the side of the Bench, as at G [referring to the plate]; or sometimes its farther Cheek is laid an edge upon the flat of the Bench, and fastened with an Hold-Fast, or, sometimes, two on the Bench."

So, Moxon is saying that this twin-screw vise disassembles and reassembles in various ways, according to what operation is being performed.

As shown in Plate 4 (Stephen's graphic), the vise is set up to stand the work away from the benchtop. Elsewhere, p. 64, Moxon says in regard to edge jointing, that "...the Bench-screw keeps the Board close to the edge of the Bench, and the Pins in the Legs keep it to its height, that it may stand steady whilst the other edge is working upon; For in the shooting of a Joint, if the Board keeps not its exact position, but shakes or trembles under the Plain, your Joint will very hardly be truly straight."

I take this latter wording to mean that, for edge-jointing, it would be typical to set the vise up so that the board is held directly against the edge of the bench.

This late-1600's vise appears to have been used very flexibly by the joiners of the day.

Wiley

Re: The Work Bench itself

Warren in Lancaster, Pa

>Wiley, I think when he says "farther Cheek is laid an edge upon the flat of the bench", I think this means that the vise was a separate appliance and only fastened to the bench by the hold fast or two, the way we might clamp a set of handscrews to the bench.

I think that in Europe at this time a lot of benches were set up for repetitive and somewhat limited work. So some had flush vises, some did not. Sometimes there were removable fixtures for specific purposes. Today we want a versatile bench that can do it all without having to make special fixtures all the time. There is a big difference, for example if you are making sash three times a year or sash all year long or just mullions one after another from sticks that are already sized.

Re: The Work Bench itself

Stephen Shepherd in the State of Deseret

>Also if you look at the bench in plate 4 the left leg protrudes out from the bench, indicating that it is also a vice. According to the description this is the only vice pictured that could hold the work up to the bench.

Hard to tell size on these illustrations but that is one wide face vice. If it were rotated 90 degrees it would be a post vice.

Stephen

Re: The Work Bench itself

Don McConnell

>Wiley et al,

Here is a link to the best image of the Felibien work bench I can come up with:

http://www.planemaker.com/photos/felibien4.gif

The legend for this illustration is:

A. Establie.

B. Crochets.

C. Vallet.

D. Petit Maillet.

E. Crochet ou Sergent.

F. Estraignoirs.

G. Presses de bois.

A thru D refer to the work bench and the three items on it. E, F and G refer to the items (left to right) on the shelf behind the bench. Possibly someone with a better knowledge of French can provide a technically accurate translation of the last three terms, which may shed some light on their relationship, if any, to the illustration from Moxon.

Speaking of which, here is a link to a slightly enlarged and cleaned-up illustration of the Moxon work bench:

http://www.planemaker.com/photos/Moxon2.gif

It does seem that, unlike the Felibien illustration, Moxon does indicate some kind of a device at the upper part of the left leg of the bench. At the moment, I can't visualize it clearly enough to make any meaningful conjecture concerning its nature and purpose. Maybe others will have some ideas?

Hope this is of some interest.

Don McConnell

Eureka Springs, AR

Re: The Work Bench itself

Frank D. in Montreal

>Hi Don,

E. Crochet = dog, or crochet (both meanings are possible)

Sergent = clamp (old forget version of today's F clamp)

F. Estraignoir = cooper's vise used to hold the staves together before final shaping. I don't know the correct English term, so here's a pic: http://pagesperso-orange.fr/amathieu/antiquite/an_presse1.htm

G. Presses de bois = bench vises (can refer to any kind of bench vise)

HTH

oops

Frank D. in Montreal

>That should read

Sergent = clamp (old FORGED version of today's F clamp)

Re: The Work Bench itself

Stephen Shepherd in the State of Deseret

>I doubt that F is a windlass (English term) a clamp to tighten around barrel staves to pull them together.

In the illustration it has extra holes on the upper end, presumably for changing the threaded spindles/handles position.

I think F & G are detachable vices and are shown attached on Moxon's bench. F would be used vertically and G horizontally.

Stephen

Re: The Work Bench itself

Frank D. in Montreal

>Yes Stephen,

I should have added that the translations I gave are, as you have observed, not necessarily the ones referred to in the Fellibien illustration. They just represent "standard" usage (standards were more flexible back then) around the 17th century as used/illustrated by Roubo (Description des Arts et M�tiers) and Diderot (encyclop�die).

Felibien version of bench

Wiley Horne

>Courtesy of Don McConnell (thank you, Don!), and the www.planemaker.com website:

Moxon version of bench

Wiley Horne

>Again, courtesy of Don McConnell, and the www.planemaker.com website. This is a portion of Plate 4, in Moxon's Mechanick Exercises, ca. 1703:

Re: The Work Bench itself

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>BTW, St Roy makes a Roubo bench in 3 or 4 parts this season.

Pam

Thanks Pam and yet another erratum

Frank D. in Montreal

>Thanks Pam,

I'll keep an eye our for that. I have to get C Schwarz' new book too (I see it's out).

BTW I meant the 18th century, not the 17th (doh...) in my previous post.

Felibien - saw filing appliance

Don McConnell

>Stephen, Warren, et al:

Hope this isn't beating a dead horse, but I found a somewhat clearer image of the saw filing appliance from Felibien. Not sure it tell us anything we didn't already know, but thought people might be interested.

Don McConnell

Eureka Springs, AR

au contraire Don

Stephen Shepherd in the State of Deseret

>This not only confirms what Warren said but it gives another little tid-bit.

Look at the leg under the bench, then look just above the bench under the wedge of the appliance, a catch, dog? Clever, slides up to use and down out of the way.

Stephen

Correction and Moxon bench image *LINK*

Don McConnell

>Wiley et al,

First the correction. In a previous post I mentioned that the saw filing appliance in Moxon's illustration was misidentified in the legend as "The Whetting Block, or Rub Stone." Since then, I"ve come to realize that my characterization was incorrect - at least, in part. In the text, while discussing saw sharpening, Moxon states: " ... They wedge the Blade of the Saw hard into the Whetting-Block, marked P, in Plate 4, with the Handle towards their left Hand, and the end of the Saw to the right ... ."

This indicates that he did, indeed, know what the appliance was for, and the wording reminded me that "whet" was sometimes used in conjunction with sharpening saws. For example, Edmund Hoppus, in _Practical Measuring Made Easy_, (7th edition, 1765) listed: "White's-Saws. Hand-Saws, Whet and Set ... ." So, the term "Whetting Block" could be correct for this appliance. Still question the "Rub Stone" terminology, however. :-)

One side note. The description of placing the saw handle to the left and the end of the saw to the right sounds more like some kind of a hand saw than a frame saw, which makes me wonder whether he was really familiar with this appliance. Think this is a good reminder that it is very risky to uncritically assume that the Moxon tool illustrations represent English tools of the time (ca. 1680) in light of the fact that so many of them are based on French examples as found in Felibien.

Now to the bench. Since posting the Moxon bench illustration, I've come across a clearer image and am providing a link to it for those who are interested. It is clear enough to discern that there is a third "bench screw" (the other two are in the "double screw," all marked "c") at the top of the left bench leg. There is also some cross-hatching which creates an irregular darkened area. I've kind of decided it's meaningless, unless someone else can make something out of it.

In any event, when Moxon states that the bench screw ... " ... keeps the Board close to the edge of the bench ...," I think he is referring to the use of a single bench screw, as at the left leg, in conjunction with a single cheek/jaw. Unfortunately, the cheek is not shown, so even if my conjecture is correct, we can't be sure what it looked like.

But I think this explanation makes some sense in the context of the "double Screw", as shown at g, which involves two bench screws and two cheeks. When it is affixed to the edge of the bench, the bench screws obviously engage threaded holes in the edge of the bench top. This would hold a board away from the bench. The other usage is to place one of the cheeks on the bench top and hold it in place with a hold-fast. I've often employed hand-screws in a manner very similar to this latter usage, so find this quite believable. It would have been nice if Moxon had indicated some usages for these two configurations.

I'd be interested in other people's thoughts on this.

Don McConnell

Eureka Springs, AR


http://www.planemaker.com/photos/moxbnch.gif

Re: Correction and Moxon bench image

Joel

>But what is "Whetting" a saw. Hoppus says "whet and set" is whetting were obviously "filing" then would he not say "set and whet"?

Re: Correction and Moxon bench image

Don McConnell

>Joel,

I think you are over-analyzing this. Hoppus was simply describing, and listing prices, of various kinds and sizes of saws available. He was indicating that, unlike the other saws mentioned, White's Saws were offered sharpened and set. It wasn't intended as a technical discussion of the process.

Though, for what it's worth, Moxon's discussion of the process begins with filing/sharpening the teeth then turns to setting them with the saw wrest. In this context, the implication might well be that M's knowledge of saw sharpening was more theoretical than practical.

Don McConnell

Eureka Springs, AR

Re: Correction and Moxon bench image

Stephen Shepherd in the State of Deseret

>Whetting the saw was done after the setting and filing to the sides of the blade on a whet stone. If it is sharp and set then it still needs to be whet on the sides. Today most people use a file.

Stephen