Vices & work holding devices

[paulchapman]

Seeing Jake's thread on his brilliant Record twin screw vice got me thinking that people might like to share information on other work holding devices that they or others have come with.

One of the best I've seen is Jake Darvall's idea for holding thin pieces to the bench with his "fish scaler" device. A bit crude but the idea's great I think. If I ever build another bench, I think I'll incorporate something like that www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=38354 If you scroll down a bit, there are some better photos further down in the thread.

Cheers

Paul

[mrgrimsdale]

I do same thing by just hammering in a screw or 2. Or 3 - one at the end and two along the back edge. If you tap the workpiece a bit the edge of the screw heads dig in and hold it firm

cheers
Jacob

[mrspanton]

Yeah me (and those japanease carpenter's) do that as well ;D It just mean's you have to fix an unsightly beastly NAIL into the top of your beloved bench ;D Mind if you DO do that method PLEASE remember to always remove the nail afterwards, it will make a mess off your hand if you brush shavings etc over the nail (I am so crude I dont always use a brush for that task ;D) ouch
I also have a huge great chopping block for shaping component's, bark stripping, doing firewood's etc. Its made from a 48 x 14 inch ash log split halfways and with 4 splay'd ash leg's with square taperd tennon's into square taper'd mortice's. At one end I put 2 vertical and parallell 1 1/4 inch diam ash pegs about 4 or 5 inche's apart (look like a pair of old style tholes on a row boat) They are handy as "bench hook" for sawing variouse log's, also If I put a board on edge between the 2 pegs it can be held with a wedge so it is rigid for hewing etc. I believe it is an old nordic or vikking metod, any way its simple fool proof and always works ;D

[noel]

I got lost half way through your description (crap at visulising) , can you post a picture of it? Or something similar? Sounds interesting.

[mrspanton]

noel said:

I got lost half way through your description (crap at visulising) , can you post a picture of it? Or something similar? Sounds interesting.

I'll see what I can do

[mrspanton]

Here you go Noel
As you can se, a board can sit on edge between the 2 upright peg's, and be fixed there with a wedge while you use an axe or a drawnkife on it. The pegs are also useful as bench stops to hold blanks against to support them solidly without skating about the chopping surface. I prefer to chopp into side grain, axe's tend to grab on end grain.


This tripod type one isnt my work, but I saw it on the web and thought what a superb idea, you could knock it together just while your out in the coppice cutting pole's etc


Cheers Jonathan

[noel]

Thanks Jacob, very interesting and it's good to learn about other methods of work.
BTW, what do you do with all the sticks?

[mrspanton]

I make chairs with a rustic sculptural quality, influenced by irish (gibson), welsh, african chinease and greek chair form's. I have only recently begun to make use of coppice poles, until recently I had an attitude they were crappy and not proper wood. ;D