Si600

I looked at Workshop Heaven because Ben Crowe was going mad over the set of Brad points he got from them. Their eyewatering prices put me off to be honest. You can definitely get better quality by paying more, but there's a point where a £115 back saw isn't twice as good as a £50 saw. In my opinion obviously.

I've renamed the topic, discuss everything now What saws should I have to start my collection? Gents saw, whatever one of those is, tenon saw, dovetail saw? To an extent, apart from the handles, they all look the same to me.

I'm assuming that these radius dishes are not actually 50' and 30' across? Either that or you have a radio telescope array in the garden that double as luthier tools.

It's got the fence and the depth stop. I decided to push the boat out a bit and get one with both rather than the scruffy ones at the cheaper end of the scale. For once, for a second hand tool, the cutting edge doesn't look like a saw blade.

Thanks to yer maun @Reggaebass, I've got another one... What I desperately need now isn't another plane, but some fine pitch saws. My tenon saw is a bit aggressive.

No, they're headless models.

Magic. It's not attached when you buy it, so just glued on.

Because I neglected the cheese wire warriors over the last few updates they got the big reveal first. It's finished!! Three coats of varnish over the weekend, interrupted by going away and it's now installed. Sensible handle for @Stub Mandrel. It's got a maximum opening of 250 mm, any more than that then the screw disengages. Side to side, is technically the width of the room, realistically, a meter would probably be enough. Likewise depth is also about a meter, but that's only because the floor gets in the way. 1500mm maybe before the end is too high to work on? If the leg met the chop all the way down then you'd get an even clamping force all the way to the floor, about 900 mm, long enough for a through neck So there it is. It's a little rough in places and certainly not perfect but it works, it's solid and I suspect will break whatever goes in the jaws before it does. The weak point is the M6 coach bolts, I think they'll bend first. If they need to be bigger in the future it's not a huge job to do. I hope you've enjoyed the trip into the Heart of Darkness, and that all the mistakes have been made by me for you, should any of you want to make a variation of it.

Oh Crom, don't ask awkward questions! There's a bitsa 5er in the not too distant future, along with a chisel stand, a deep box picture frame and other random projects as and when I can think of them.

I installed these little 5mm thick plates for the bottom of the scissor mechanism to run on, it pushes it out far enough for the chop to be parallel. And now with the fore edge repair planed to fit. The chop is a smidgen short, so the new face is a little proud. Anyone would think it was deliberate. Varnish and final fit to come. I had hoped to be done today, but waiting for extra glue to dry put paid to that.

I haven't got any. Pine block board all the way.

Er, yes. That's exactly what I was thinking. Ignore the bits where I admit to a mistake. In fact, ignore all of those comments. This has gone together with absolutely no problems whatsoever. 🤥

Bu$$er off you. I'm already a rebate plane extra... I'm using the bench edging as a planing stop at the moment, but that sliding doohickey does look a nice idea. Dimensions please 🤔

The BC Swear Aunty won't let me post what I actually said. Nearly there. So I'm happily planing the top of the chop level and chamfering the back edge to make it look nice and less chunky. You all know what's coming next. Yup, I started on the wrong side and took the corner off the fore edge. Pretty much did the only thing possible in the circumstances. This is what I wanted to do.

It does seem a trifle big. And very square 😉

Candy Cola Red.

It's not the 2G before you get excited. It's the direct drive with No. 2 taper and slightly annoyingly long quill.

Meaning it's just an engineers vice that happens to be attached to my bench. It's only purpose in the woodworking vice is that I've used it to hold various bits of the new vice whilst I do things to them

It's a start Yes. No. Thank you. IIRC it's an Eliot Progress, could be from anytime between the 50's to the early 70's according to Google.

Handle can wait. What's happened is that I made the scissor mechanism symmetrical. The hole in the top that it hangs from is in the middle of the square bar and it pivots around it's center. This means that the ends that run in the channels are about 5mm too short so that the gap at the bottom of the chop is around 10mm than the top. I've got three options I think. Weld a lump on the end of the bar to thicken it up, making the end look like a b shape if you will. Bolt a pair of bearings onto each end of the scissor that are 5mm wider than the bar. Bend the bar, or option four, pack out the base of the channel with a strip of wood. I'm going to try option four, it has the added advantage of smoothing out the surface of the channel after I didn't cut it out very well.

Lawks, if it ain't clear by now I have no clue what I'm doing... Right, what I'm doing is building a leg vice on my bench. There's a picture of one somewhere back in the darkness of the thread. Leg vices need some way if keeping the moving bit, called the chop for some reason, parallel to the leg, otherwise if you put a deep bit of stock or work in it it only grips at the bottom edge. The usual, and easy, way is to have a sliding beam attached to the bottom of the chop wit a series of holes drilled in it. You adjust the amount of stand off by putting a peg in the hole closest to the thickness of the work. Somewhere around 1900 a mechanism was described, called erroneously a St. Peter's cross, in a book. Presumably it was reasonably common for the author to have heard of it. The scissor mechanism has advantages over the peg board because it's self adjusting to the exact width of the work in the vice and you don't have to bend down to move the peg around. It's more work to fit and fettle. I had to build a new bench leg as well as the vice chop itself. It's 90% there, it needs planing tidying and final fix followed fettling to make it work. Does that help

Get which bit? Question away sir, and I shall endeavour to explain.

That's what the other vice is for 😉

Because I couldn't help myself I put the screw in to see what happens. It works, but needs fettling. I know what's gone wrong though.

Riiiiiiight. So. I took the clamps off it this afternoon and offered it up just because I was a little bit squeee about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Well. It was too long, which I knew. So I lopped the end off and hung the chop on the scissor doohickey to see what happened. Holy Instant Saint Maker Batman (see DoI thread, if you dare, for context )! It looks like it's going to work. I was about 90% sure that it would though. It needs a bit (lot) of tidying with a plane, and the screw fitting and probably fettling, but I present to you a (mostly) finished leg vice.