For the glory shots of the completed leg vise, please click here.
Today, I finally can scratch off this component of the bench at last!
I came out to shop more confused than ever on how to proceed after ending the session yesterday in frustration. So I turned on the radio and put everything together and watched carefully how the threaded rod affected the garter and tried to catch it.
It occurred to me I should try and either (a) make the half threads surrounding the garter grove more sharp instead of gradual sloped and (b) file the groove deeper into the core of the rod. The rod is so thick (actually 5/8” not the 1/2” I wrote the other day) I don’t think the filing I did hurt the strength of the rod at all.
I took nearly an hour to slowly file bit by bit and test and re-test the garter, but each time it worked a little better. Finally, by the time I was ready to give up and move on, the last test worked. I filed a little more off (we’re talking 3-4 strokes of the file) and it was as near to perfect as I feel I can get at this stage in the game. The groove was way deeper than I originally made yet still not so deep that I am worried for the integrity of the vise.
I attached the guide (freshly glued and sanded again) and at long last, it’s done!
You can see in the picture above, this thing has an effective clamping width of something around 18” or so (!!!). Here it’s only backed out about 6 or 7 inches. Then I closed it for another look.Man it feels good to step back and say I built that!!Once I get the ends of the top trimmed (the billets are still rough cut to length from when I built it) the next step will be a sliding deadman. And to clean up. Sheesh, what a slob.
Please click here for pictures.
Crafty Puzzles
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