This happened again the other day and thinking about the problem for a while, I came up with the following solution. Put a dowel in the hole after marking the center on the dowel. After drilling the countersink hole, just remove the dowel.

I have one working clamp and five in the last stages of finishing, so the journey has not quite ended, but it has progressed far enough for a final blog entry.

I found this an interesting and satisfying journey with some knowledge gained and skills improved.

Insights gained: 1) This journey took longer than I at first anticipated, but isn’t that part of life? Projects are almost always over budget and they take longer than planned. Fortunately I did not make a specific budget for this project and maybe that is why the overall costs for this project is fairly low. Items I had to purchase was, the threaded rod, nuts, washers, poly finish and some dowel sticks. Al in al I estimate about R200 to R250 ZA ($25 – $30 US) which is not bad for six bar clamps that would have cost me about R2000 ZA ($250 US) if I had to buy them.

2) Some aspects of the making becomes tedious when making a batch of six clamps, especially when you have to make up batches of six and twelve components. However, if I did not take this route I would only have had one or two at the most.

3) Some planning before I started has payed off. My plans provided good direction signposts during the journey, even though I deviated from them slightly as I went along.

4) My experiment with back block payed off. I decided to use wood in stead metal for the holding bars. The tests so far show they are quite solid, though only time will tel on how they hold out in the long run. If they do fail at some point, it wont be too much of a hassle to replace them with beefier wood or metal.

5) If I had to go this route again, I will not use normal pine for the bars as the knots tended to introduce warps end bend bends in the bars that had to be planed out. I don’t have a jointer, so this proved to be quite a bit of a task. I got some practice using my stanleys though, so it is not all bad. My skill with hand planes still has a lot of room for improvement, thus the final result is not as good as it would have been from a jointer. For now, however, I think they are straight enough, even though they are not perfect. I worry that in future some warpage will return. I put a good coat of poly on to hopefully prevent this. This happened in spite of the me having the pine slab for many years. I had hoped that it was seasoned enough so that there would not be wood movement after cutting. Unfortunately there was quite a bit of wood movement. In the future for a similar project I will rather go for a fine straight grain hardwood, even though this may cost a bit more. In the end it will still be cheaper than shop bought clamps. The two clamps that I cut from the Origan pine door post are quite straight. Maybe this is because of the finer grain pattern of Origan pine.

All in all, I enjoyed the journey and would recommend it as a worthwhile endevour.

The final project post is over here.

First I cut some 10 mm round bar from my steel scrap heap,

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which had to welded together


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Next I filed a notch in the threaded rod



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and then I welded the crank handle to the threaded rod

Six pairs stacked

Partially finished clamp resting on the saddle supports

Bottom view of the saddle support sitting on the bar. It is not fixed and can be moved around to suite the table space availble.

I still need to ad the winding handle

Almost finished. Phew this is taking longer than I thought it should!

A whaser in the front of the nut and at the back of the nut inside the jaw

Insert the dowels after gluing

Put the pressure on!

Before and after sanding

Poly drying in the sun

Now to drill the half holes in the bottom of the bars. Clamp two clamps bottoms to each other

Use a drilling jig to get the holes evenly spaced or use a caliper to mark them. (I switched to the caliper after the first pair as it was faster than moving the jig each time.)

Previuos blogs in this series
1) The bar and front jaw
2) Securing the nut for the front jaw
3) Back post

A nice tight fit thanks to my kerfmaker

A 25mm hole for the nut and a 16mm hole (not shown) for the threaded rod.

Six nuts pinned to the threaded rods

The nut is press fitted into the hole

A test dry fit

The problem with the hinge holes from the door post fixed

Previous blogs
1) The bar and front jaw
2) Securing the nut for the front jaw
4) Back jaw

I have some 5mm nails which supplied me with a tight press fit pin

After peening the pin, I’m sure it will stay there forever and a day :-)

Other blogs in this series
1) The bar and front jaw
3) Back post
4) Back jaw

I have a odd assortment of bar clamps, including some homemade clamps I made from 25mm (1 Inch) square tubing and a few wooden clamps that work with wedges. I also have some cheap pipe clamps of which the back jaw keeps on slipping under the clamping pressure.

The other day I stumbled across this YouTube video i.r.o. homemade heavy duty wooden bar clamps.

I drew some plans to get started

And so the journey begins.
I started by cutting the bars from some pine I have had for many years.

There was enough for four clamps plus an old door post for two more
The first four is from what we call SA Pine and the last two from the door post is Origan Pine.

Note the finer grain pattern on the Origan Pine.

I will need to do some repair work on the hinge holes from the door post.

Update the repair

Then I cut the blocks for the front jaw from some SA Teak that I also have had for many years.

In the following photos that show how the front jaw goes together, the holes for the dowels had not been drilled yet.

The whasers will help prevent the wear from nut on the front end.

I still need to decide how to secure the front nut to the threaded rod. I don’t trust the long lasting qualities of epoxy inside the block which will not be able to be opened once it is glued together. I don’t want to use two nuts locked together either as this will leave the front wall of the jaw to thin to my liking. I am thinking about a solder process and a pin through the nut. I will update this blog on what I come up with.

The next step will be the screw post and then the back jaw.

Next blogs
2) Securing the nut for the front jaw
3) Back post
4) Back jaw

What to do? OK (sigh) This project will have to put on hold while I make a bigger kerfmaker :-(

Then a flash of inspiration hit me

After fiddeling with the kerfmaker and getting it right sometimes I finaly understand the principal behind it.
All that I need is a spacer that makes an allowance for the blade thickness on the one cut. Off to the scrap bin. Cut the block square. Screw in a flat headed screw until it protrudes the same thickness as the blade and there you have it :-)

How does it work?

The first cut

(that will be the left cut if your stop block is on the left of the blade or the right cut if your stop block is right of the blade)
Use the work piece you want to cut a kerf for as a spacer. (Basically the same procedure that you use to set the standard kerfmaker, you just use the work piece instead of the kerfmaker for a spacer.) For this cut you don’t take the blade thickness into account.

The second cut
Use only the kerfmaker as a spacer and flip it around to take the blade thickness into account.

Now just nibble out the waste between the cuts.

How to micro adjust for a perfect cut:

Use the micro adjuster screw and turn it out to make the kerf smaller and turn it in to make the kerf larger.

This should only be necessary the first time. Thereafter it will work fine.

After adjustment: a perfect fit!

I hope the above makes sense. Feel free to ask if you don’t understand and I will try to answer.

Lessons learned:
1) Sharp chisels make a HUGH difference. With a sharp chisel you can even try softwood.
2) I need to get a better dovetail saw or at least I need to sharpen my present one. I need to get a triangle file for that though. (I have a saw offset tool to set the teeth after sharpening that I inherreted from my father) and which I have used many moons ago.
3) I need to practise making straight cuts.
4) Using a chisel to get rid of the waste works much better than using a saw and with a sharp chisel it is quite quick.

All in all I think my second try went well, but I still need some practice before trying a box.

No 1 and no 2 comparison




No 1 is left and no 2 right

Here is my first attempt:

At least it is a nice tight fit

Lessons learned:
1) A cheap dovetail saw does not help in making nice dovetails
2) Your chisels need to be very sharp.
3) Hogging out the waste with a hacksaw does not give very good result.
4) Don’t be in a hurry and forget the 5 minute part of the 5 minute dovetail practice session :-)

I think I will continue with the 5 minute practise dovetail until my skill level has improved enough to try a full set of drawer dovetails.

Unfortunately some of them still have part of the floor stuck to them.

Any suggestions of what to make with will be welcomed. I will have to clean them by cutting away the sticky side. That means that they will only be about 4mm thick afterwards.

They burn quite well, but I was wondering if I could put them to better use.

All comments will be appreciated.

The only drawback is that it only has one miter slot and the blade can’t tilt

The original splitter

Which I replaced with a riving knife

The arbor assembly

The 3/4 hp motor

The rip fence

The insert plate

Blade guard

The miter gauge was also home made

Through the years I have made various things from wood. Unfortunately digital camera technology only started being part of my life later on and therefore I don’t have pictures of my earlier projects. I will post some pics of my later projects in the projects section as time permits. I enjoy making jigs and tools just as much as making a project from wood. (Maybe this is due to the fact that tools are expensive and that there is always something else ahead of tools in the family budget.) Anyway I would rather make some tool (if I can) than spend big bucks on it. A further factor in this is that the availibility in South Africa is also much more limited.

Unfortunately my time for woodworking is very limited and it become even more limited when I made a life change to become a full time minister out of a career in marketing. Six years full time studies took their toll on woodworking time and I only recently started again. My shop is in a very unorganised state at this stage with only my table saw and drill press in proper working positions.

I have a unique table saw and to me a very special one. It was made by my wife’s grandfather who was a mine engineer in one of South Africa’s coal mines. He had some very talents in this regard. He also made a steel lathe and one of his bigger projects was a home made caravan (I think it is called a camper in the states). One big limitation on the saw is that the blade can’t tilt.

Fortunately I still have all my fingers and only had one accident where I cut my thumb. The cut didn’t go deep enough to damage any bone as I always adjust the height of the blade so that the teeth are just above the piece of wood being cut. This happened because I was in a hurry and wanted to do just one more cut before rushing off to fetch my daughter from school. (Here I broke one of my cardinal safety rules: when you get frustrated or you are in a hurry- close the shop and come back another day when you are more relaxed) Due to lack of concentration I reached over the spinning blade to take the push stick and the result was a lot of blood and pain. Fortunately there was no permanent damage to my thumb.

In further blog postings I will ad some more details and pictures of the table saw and mods I intend to make to add functionality that later year table saws have.