Paramo vice

I got this nice little vice effectively for free at a car boot sale (the seller wanted £5 for it, but I put together a deal with two planes and this which knocked £7 off the total price).

First post

I’ve been blogging for a while about woodworking (ok mostly just about buying tools 🙂 ) and every so often I post something that I think is better suited to a blog on metalworking.

I plan to use this blog for all future posts that involve any metalworking or tool restoration (or at least any that are more advanced than a quick rub down with some wet and dry and a dip in the derusting liquid!).

I’ll also copy over some of my previous posts to this blog to fill in a bit of history of my metalwork to date.

At the moment I’m no more advanced than a bit of metal butchery with a hacksaw and files, but I did a bit of brazing at school and used a lathe.

I’d like to learn to weld one day, but in the short term I’ll be getting my head around taps & dies and maybe attempting to make some replacement screws and parts for some of my tools.

Free vice

(This was originally posted on my woodworking blog but is obviously more relevant to my metalworking blog)

Today I was out watching the London to Brighton veteran car run when I received a call which reinforced my belief that I’m quite lucky in the mother-in-law department!

It went something like this:

MiL: “Do you have one of those bench clamp things?”
Me: “A vice? Yes I have a couple”
MiL: “Oh – only there’s one outside a house near me with a notice saying ‘Free – please collect’ on it”
Me: “I’ll be right round”

Bar clamp fettling

(This was originally posted on my woodworking blog, but is probably the first “metalbutchery” post, so I’ve copied it across).

A little while ago I bought some Dakota light bar clamps from Rutlands.

I’ve yet to use them, but I think they’ll come in handy on the living room storage and TV stand projects, which I hope to begin soon.

Their bars are made from aluminium and the heads are iron and one jaw of the head moves up and down the bar, fixing by means of a sprung catch that locates into little D shaped holes in the bar.

These catches are fairly roughly cast and some had a 1-2mm step between the left and right half of their face.