Martyn

Have you considered just drilling all the holes straight through and then just adding a baseboard on the bottom?

You're welcome. I probably should do a video showing the function, because pictures dont really tell the story. The mod radically alters the way the clamp operates. It's now fully spring loaded, balanced, super quick, one handed (actually one-fingered) operation with both coarse and sensitive adjustment through a good range of movement.

I think if you're drilling a solid block, a drill press is pretty essential. You can get away with it if you are drilling through a couple of thin bits and then separating them in a box setup, because the errors aren't locked into it in the same way - it's not solid so you can move the base part a fraction to correct any waywardness. You can also make the holes slightly oversized to introduce a bit of forgiveness too. But I also have to remind myself it's just a tool holder, it's not dining room furniture. Like I said the woodworking on mine is shocking, but it looks nice enough from 10 feet away and so long as it works, it's all good. :D

I wish I'd spoken to you last week Bri, the tools are on order, but no bother mate, they were only £8 quid for the set. Thanks for the offer though. So how come you have 2 sets? :D Sorry to hear about the stroke mate, that's rough - I had no idea. But as you say, you're alive. Good news about the assessment mate - freeeedddom, it'll be like getting your life back, it'll make all the difference I'm sure. Me mate's just dropped off the forstener bits, so I've got an afternoon of marking out holes on me drilling template. I'll drill em up tomorrow I think. I'm not looking forward to it, plywood is horrible stuff for blowing out at the back and not having a drill press it going to make it awkward.

Thanks Bruce. I've just double checked, there is nothing on the shoe part and just the dot you mentioned on the brass shim. The only identifying mark on the whole thing is the Ministry of Defence broad arrow serial number. You see the same thing on the old Vapalux army paraffin/kerosene lanterns. They are never branded 'Vapalux', all you see on em is a broad arrow number, but they are all 100% genuine Vapalux. The only other markings on the cutter are on the beam, it's marked to 5 inches. Do you have any tips for sharpening the knife part? Thanks, Martyn.

Sounds like you've been sick Bri? You'll have to forgive me mate, I've been unwell meself and havent been near the forums in a couple of years and am really out of touch with everything. I've got something called Crohn's disease. I's floored me for the last couple of years, but I'm getting on top of it. I just dabble with the leatherwork mate, more for something to keep me sane really. You know, you can do a bit when you are feeling right sort of thing. It's easy to pick up and put down. I've been practising saddle stitching old school - you know marking with a pricking iron and then making the holes with an awl as you go along. I'm still a bit fingers and thumbs with it and my back side stitching needs work, but I'm getting there. I've never done any carving before either. Seems like we're both on the same page with this. I have a swivel knife and just bought one of those cheapo 20 piece sets off ebay. The tools will be rubbish, but good enough to let me know if it's something I can get into. Hence the box really. I was sick of stabbing myself on awls, trying to find something at the bottom of a box of bits and with more tools coming, I needed something to sort the mess and organise it. Hope your assessment goes well Bri and I hope you're on top of whatever is ailing you mate? All the best, Martyn.

I was right, the British Army does have it's own saddlery. See: https://www.army.mod.uk/rolefinder/role/195/saddler I bet this is an unbranded Joseph Dixon cutter, commissioned by the Ministry of Defence for the household guard saddlery. I got a good deal, I got the whole box full of stuff including 2 Geo.Barnsley & sons branded pricking irons for £50 quid.

OK. The cam clamp is the 'Cam Action Hold Down Clamp' from Wood River. They do 2 versions, a 1/4" version and a 5/16" version. Get the 5/16" version. I think it's $7.99 on Amazon (it was about £10 in the UK but I cant remember where from). The clamp comes with a 3 1/2" bolt with a 'tee' head. It's not long enough. So you will need to replace with a 4 1/4" long x 5/16" dia bolt with a UNC thread (18 tpi) - make sure to get the right thread type. It's not critical, but as a spring is running over the shaft of the bolt, a part-threaded bolt is preferable. I think mine has the last 1 1/2" threaded and it's perfect. You will also need 4 steel penny washers, 5/16" hole, 1" OD and 4 rubber washers of the same size also. The spring was from Hong Kong via Ebay.uk and was £2.45. It was listed as... 16mm x 8mm x 65mm Spiral Chromium Alloy Steel Stamping Compression Die Spring ...but I just did a search for die compression spring. You'll get 100's of hits. The dimensions are important, 16mm outside diameter, 8mm inside diameter (runs nicely over 5/16" bolt) and 65mm long. This will give a neutral tension point with the jaws open about 3/14". The colour of the spring is also important as they are colour coded for their duty rating. Yellow is classed as light duty. If you are trying to buy from ebay.com (rather than ebay.uk) you'll probably have to convert the metric dimensions to imperial to find the right spring in the listings. That's it. Assemble when the bits arrive so it looks like the pics above. I just levered the spring in-between the legs of the clamp, using the block to jemmy open the legs a little. It's a bit of a fight, but it's doable and no need to disassemble the clamp or anything (it's actually glued up anyway, so attempting disassembly would probably damage it). total cost is probably a shade under $15 US. Actually, when I think about it, Tandy should build em like this for the price they are selling them for. I bet with Tandy's buying power, they could source the parts for under $5 dollars.

Been using a couple of bits of wood as a clamp for ages, but I finally bit the bullet on a Tandy original pony when they had some on half price sale. This one... I was a bit disappointed though. The wingnut thing seemed a bit crude for the price and it spun - why couldn't they put a washer on it? Also, I wasn't keen on using the wooden block thing to open the clamp up ....and there seemed to be an awful lot of spring in the legs - it really didn't need a wingnut to keep it closed. So I started thinking what could I do to make it into the pony I was hoping it was going to be. here it is in it's tarted up glory... ...mostly cosmetic. I added a couple of magnets up top, a holster for my pliers, shaped and shortened the leg and added a 'saddle', but the real functional mod and what I wanted to share, was what I did to the tensioning system. As you can see I removed the bolt and wingnut and replaced it with a cam-clamp and spring system... Much, much easier to use the cam-clamp than the wingnut, but the main addition that I havent seen before is the die compression spring. The spring works against the natural spring of the clamp and is in balance. Finding the right spring was tricky, but this is bang on. If I open the clamp up fully, the jaws open to about 3/4 of an inch under the force of the spring. At that point, the spring runs out of 'juice' fighting the clamp. I can open it up to about an inch and a quarter, but the spring needs a little help. But for everything I've done to date, 3/4 of an inch has been more than enough. I lift the lever, unwind, insert project, wind in the desired tension it's just a question of opening and closing the lever to move and re-clamp. You can set the clamping force to be like the brush of a butterflies wing, or about 200lbs and anything in between. That adjustment works exactly the same, regardless of the thickness of the project (up to the 3/4 inch mentioned, after that, the clamp starts to beat the spring a little). Overall, I'm super happy. The little leather shield under the handle acts as a thread deflector, basically stops your thread from getting hooked under the arm of the clamp. Clamp open... closed... Works like a charm. I'm sure I'm not the first to combine a compression spring with a cam clamp like this, but I havent seen it before so I thought I'd share. If someone has a Tandy pony and they fancy doing this mod, I can dig out the exact hardware specs I use, which would save some legwork. LMK if it's required. Cheers, Martyn.

Cool. Dont suppose you know if they normally have a makers mark on em somewhere? I suppose I'd better have a go at making a belt then. :D

Hey Bri, ayup mate (Martyn here from BB). This is a coincidence, I'm halfway through making my own organiser too, having had exactly the same reaction as you to the daft cost of the commercial versions, which are just a drilled out bit of wood. here's mine... made from an old cat tree that was destined for the skip. It had some decent plywood on it that I thought was too good to bin, so decided to make a tool organiser. It's just a roughly screwed together box, all done with a jig saw and a cordless drill. The brass handles were salvaged from an old wooden table that got skipped some time back. I got carried away though and poshed it all up a bit with a leather top. Cost to me so far is 6"x18" of veg tan, the screws and my time - and I could have left the leather off really. The bit I've already drilled out is for pricking irons and chisel sets. The space on the left is fro awls and such to hang, but I'm waiting on the loan of some big forstner bits before I can drill em out. The bit to the right is for stamping tools and sundry tools. I'm pretty pleased with it so far. The woodwork is shameful, but it looks nice - I just hope I dont screw it up drilling the big holes.

Hey guys, I picked up a job lot box of leather tools from an estate sale. The description said there was a strap cutter in there, but there is no makers mark on it. It looks a bit vintage and there appears to be a serial number with as date of 1968 on it. There also appears to be a British Ministry of Defence 'broad arrow' stamp. The broad arrow gets (or used to get) stamped onto everything MoD and I'm wondering if this was maybe an unbranded tool that was made for some MoD saddlers attached to a cavalry regiment or something? Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone can pin an ID on it. I've dabbled in a bit of leatherwork as a hobby, but I'm reluctant to have a guess because I'm a total novis when it comes to these old tools and dont really know what I'm looking at, for all I know it could be a hammer. :D Thanks, Martyn.