Si600

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.

A giant pink torpedo up probably. Followed by firewood.

Funny you should say that... Start with a length of metal. Metal I understand, it doesn't do weird things like splitting or randomly bending. It's dimensionally stable, you mill it, drill it or cut it and it stays in the same shape as when you left it. No idea what it is, normal mild I'd guess. Those who were paying attention, or have done their research, which excludes me at the moment, will know that as this cross thing slides in the channels it doesn't need to be fully rounded on the end. That, plus laziness, brings this. Hopefully it'll be enough, TIM will tell. Hole at one end to hang it, hole in the middle to spin it. Voila, le croix de St. Pierre. Or St. Andrew, or a scissor mechanism. It's symmetrical in length both ways, which means I got the hole in the middle in the right place Temporary installation to show off. Closed. There may need to be a little relief for the bolt to go into the recess, but it'll never be fully closed simply because the ends don't line up when the vice is shut.

Enough of the silliness and thread hijacking... Even though I started it. This is where things had got to. The middle three have their cut out, dados and screw holes. Made up some cheeks to go along side the block of five long ones. Through holes were drilled as lengths were finished, using the first one as a template to reduce any dimension creep. Cut some dowels and then dropped everything trying to move it. Looks like a child's construction toy at the moment. Fortunately I'd marked up which bit went where. Woah, it's halfway there, wo-oh haven't got a prayer In a sort of self deprecating way I'd like to say how surprised and relieved I was that it all went together, but I'm not. In this instance I fully expected it to go together. It's oversized and not even at the moment. Going by how the legs ended up I decided to build the chop up and then plane it to flat and square. I may regret that later of course.

It's the same footprint as the house, something like 7.5m wide and 17m long. Our last house including garden in West Haddon would comfortably fit inside the building footprint. I have no idea. I'm assuming that as it's a cellar it won't matter if a bit of damp comes through the wall, unlike plaster they won't fall off, and they're easy to clean?

Nothing useful here, just me trolling @Andyjr1515 Workshop, such as it is. Foot of the cellar stairs Pantry and moving box storage! Party/garden room

Get thee behind me tempter 😉

What's that mahoosive dent in the arm contour? A trick of the light?

By Thor's beard! Don't ask the Teebles things, you'll give him delusions of adequacy.

My workshop is in the cellar if that makes you feel better. The way the land falls means that I have some natural light from a small window and a door out into the garden, which may not help of course 😉

Apropos this. I've also been distracted by having to fit a mortice lock in the garden gate. I've just got to the handle to find that the square bar is too big for the hole in the lock body. Ho hum. More bench may happen later. It's proper hot though. 28 (82.4 for Americans and old people) according to the thermometer thing.

I have done stuff, honest. It's mostly revolved around getting the workshop reorganised. The bench drill now has its own table for instance. What I have managed to do is cut out the middle slot. Fig. 1 It's a bit of a mess to be honest. I didn't do very well reading the grain in places so I've dipped below my lines. Planing it got rid of the worst of it, but it's not great. I cut the middle one off to make the hole for the screw, and made a housing dado in one of the others. The first outing for my new toy: a router plane.

Was Mrs Jr1515 out today, or does she know you're in danger of scratching the best dining table?

I deliberately cut it 5mm oversized just for wiggle room with the planing