Spring Vice ver 1.0

The spring vice is done, at least for the prototype stage. We had it with at Derbyshire, but the very low quality coal we got made almost anything a huge challenge. Jessie busted his butt just trying to keep it lit and trying to get enough heat to draw points.

The coal we had was not only low in quality, but was also about 30 percent driveway gravel. It also had some charcoal mixed in, just for fun. Charcoal burns well enough, but tends to spark and pop under high heat. This, mixed in with coal, makes for an ashy, spitty fire. Add rock to the mix, which acts as a heat sink, and it's just miserable to try to do anything with.

The early tests with the vice are promising. It holds fairly firmly, with about 100 lbs of downward pressure on the stock. A few minutes of clean up on the vice will bring it to presentable, so we should have pics up soon. Once it's ground clean and painted we will see about pics of it, and get some "action shots" to show how it can be used.

The helve is still in progress, so more info on that later.

A lot in the works

So it has been a while since I updated the lessons section.

Partly this is because I am writing ahead a fair bit, and partly because we have been busy. Mayfaire snuck up on us, went well enough (except for me getting really sick on the last day). We are making a lot of stock for the summer season, and have designed two new tools that I will detail here in coming posts as part of the lessons. These tools will make some of the future lessons easier, and should just be fun for others to have and use.

The first is a medium sized treadle powered helve hammer and the second is a new kind of spring vice.

The helve is an ancient form of power hammer, which was later reduced in size and adapted to be either motor powered or human powered. You don't see a lot of them in use in blacksmith shops any longer, even though they are easier to build than some other treadle hammers.

The spring vice we are working on and testing is actually going to be useful for more than just metal smiths. With a few simple modifications, it should also be a boon to wood carvers, or anyone else that needs a portable, versatile clamping system for reasonable sized stock. As usual, the big hang up is the art work. I may just resort to photographs for these articles.

They will also be up on our main site when the articles are done, and will probably be there before they show up here.