Spyros
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Everything posted by Spyros
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To be clear: I have no idea. But I'm very curious as well, I've spent like 20 mins now zooming in at photos and I just can't figure it out. My best guess is this is a single thin piece folded 7 times and pressed in some wood vice, and then unfolded and stitched like that on a backing. And then edged very carefully But I could be wildly off
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Tooled Braces/Suspenders
Spyros replied to AlexOstacchini's topic in Purses, Wallets, Belts and Miscellaneous Pocket Items
I'm probably the least experienced here but to my eyes this is about as good as it gets. -
Oh yeah, absolutely it would work on mine as well! A big rubber washer would too, if needed.
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Hi Rocky Great to see that big dust extraction hose and shroud you got there, you really don't want to be breathing that dust. There are a few ways to deal with swivel/clamping problem like yours, and probably the easiest is to keep the swivel and clamp functions separate. Basically have one hole with an unthreaded bolt or rod that your moving part can pivot on, and then have a slot a bit further up for your clamping bolt. Sort of like this That way the pivot bolt lifts all the weight of your hands etc, and all the other bolt has to do is clamp. The higher up you make the slot, the finer the adjustments you can dial in. Add a big washer behind the star nut and it should be ok. If that doesnt work then you probably need more support, so basically try to rebuild the jig so that the pivot point is a bit more to the right under where your hands will be. But before doing all that, maybe just try a bigger bolt and rubber washer, might be all you need. I'd order a star nut from ebay to make tightening and adjusting a bit faster, or if you can't be bothered next time you're at Bunnings just grab a big wing nut
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Where are good places for beginners to buy leather online?
Spyros replied to TestTube's topic in Getting Started
ok stressing for no reason, I got my tracking number -
Alright now that I'm having a play with the finished product I can see I need to make a small change, because i did the slot instead of the t-track and now it doesn't pivot exactly the same way as the other one. Specifically when I mount it on the table, if I want to tilt it down towards the floor it only tilts about 30 degrees. If you're happy with that, make no change. If you want it to tilt all the way down until it's parallel to the floor, you need to trim Part A a little bit where I've marked yellow below. Shave about 5-6mm off should do the trick.
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Yeah, I made them in A4 so printing in A4 makes sense. I'm not sure what exactly is the process to print 1:1, I think it depends on your printer settings etc. Can't help you there. Just make sure the dimension in green is correct on the printed paper, but I'm not sure how to achieve that, I'm terrible with printers. Worst case scenario you might end up with a giant or a miniature stitching pony
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For the last part, you need to drill a hole big enough for your bolt right there where at the end of the spring and mount your star knob from the other side So that when you turn the knob it pushes the right "wing" in, and when you unscrew it the spring pushes the wing out. On this side stupid me used a bolt instead of a coach bolt, so now I have to either sink it in the wood so it doesn't turn, or go and buy a coach bolt (which sinks itself in once and for all and never turns again). Don't be like me, buy a coach bolt. Obviously you need to drill through the wing and put a piece of metal rod through so that it can pivot on part B. And the other wing needs to be glued and screwed in position (or even just glued would be fine). But I'm not going to do those thingsd for you guys, because I'm actually not sure what I want to do with this pony. I already have an identical one, so I might just use the remaining plywood to build longer wings and mount those on instead. Or just finish it and gift it to somebody, or sell it. I don't know, I'll think on it for a few days.
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For the next joint, same drill. Take your part B, screw the insert nut in, add a nylon washer, thread it through, add another washer from the other side Screw it in, boom, done.
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This is what it looks like when it's finished. Notice how the circle part looks limp? That's exactly what you want, you want it to be loose. Works great The whole point of this mechanism is that when you start tightening your clamp by turning the knob, as soon as the circular part comes in contact with the bottom of your table it stops turning, but the screw inside it keeps turning and pushing upwards until the clamp is firmly (but gently) attached on your table. Last thing about the clamp: the parts that come in contact with your table, you want to line them with something. I know your first instinct would be to line them with leather, and you surely can do that with just your leather glue, but it will come off eventually and it's a bit slippery anyway. Go to a hardware store and ask for a small roll of non slip vinyl, the type they put on slippery steps in workplaces etc. It usually comes with double side sticky tape, use that to fix it on the clamp. Not as pretty as leather but it's definitely the best stuff for the job.
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Next step for the clamp: find a domed end nut for your bolt Then cut a circle (slightly smaller in diameter than your star nuts) from your thick plywood, then make a wide hole in it for your domed nut to sit very comfortably in. It should look like this: and then make an equal size circle out of thinner material (anything 2-5mm), and cut a hole in that one just wide enough for your bolt to go through, but not wide enough for the end nut to get out of: Then put it all together in this order: Ideally at this point you want to weld the end nut on the bolt, and by all means do that if you can be bothered, but I never did on mine and I've been using it for months and it never came off. Also, another good thing you can do is add a little piece of metal in the hole on top of the end nut, like a tiny metal button or washer or something, it will help things run smoother long term. I did do this in my other pony, completely forgot on this one. Anyway I might open it up and do it at some point. Then glue and clamp your circular parts together and leave them a couple of hours to dry.
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Then sink the insert nut in with a hex key. I'm not gonna lie, those thinks are a bitch to put them in straight. You'd think the hole would guide it but it always seems to want to go sideways a little bit. Anyway if you fail and your bolt is going in very crooked, take out the nut and try to put it in from the other side of the hole, guiding it straight while turning it with the hex key. Basically you have 2 tries to put this in straight, but if it's crooked by only a little bit that's ok, it will still work just fine (don't ask me how I know LOL)
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Ok lets make a clamp, which I believe is what sets this pony apart from the ones sold on etsy etc. So pretty much all the stitching ponies I've seen, even some of the most high-end ones, have this sort of clamp that catches in the bottom of your table and keeps turning as you turn the screw until it lodges itself in your table or at the very least marks it for ever. This is a terrible design, not only it will scratch the crap out of your table but the actual clamp will self destruct eventually. I'll show you how to make a proper clamp that lands gently on the bottom of your table and then it only squeezes without turning. We'll make a pony that you can use on your dining table if you want without ever leaving a mark. Take your part A, mark it in the bottom , about 20mm from the edge: Then drill a hole right through, wide enough to just fit your insert nut. It's important to drill that hole as straight as possible
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Probably not LOL
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Note: if you've done this right, the bolt should turn 12-15 times inside the knob before it hits the bottom of the hole. Thats about 15-20mm of travel, which is all you need. For the other knobs it's pretty much the same process, except you don't want to sink the nut, you want to sink the head of the bolt. Like this So when you turn the knob, you want to turn the whole bolt. I hope things make sense so far??
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Now that you have something to handle your star knob with, take it to a sander and give it a bit of a bevel all around, makes it much easier on the hand: You can see now where your initials will go
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(make sure there is no epoxy in the threads of the nut. If there is, before the epoxy dries completely screw the bolt in and out a few times and then clean the epoxy off the threads of the bolt, it's much easier like that). Ok you should have something like this at this point:
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And then you make that impression deeper with a chisel, deep enough to fit the nut Then you mix some 2 part epoxy, and sink the bolt in with a hammer
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And once you've drilled this hole, then you have to drill a slightly wider one, that is just a bit smaller than how wide your nut is. You should end up with a hole inside a hole, something like this:] Then you take your bolt with your nut in the end, and you tap it with a hammer inside your hole, until it leaves an impression:
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Alright the next part is a little challenging but it will make you feel like a real woodworker: you have to make this big bolt to operate with this wooden knob. And the way to do it is by sinking this nut inside the knob: I know it sounds difficult but you guys can skive and tool leather, you are practically neurosurgeons compared to the average woodworker! ok first step is you drill a hole in the center of your knob, big enough for your bolt to go in freely, but not much bigger than that. You just have to find the right size drill bit, about 1-2mm thicker than your bolt. And you have to drill about 4/5 of the way into your wood (if you get this wrong and you drill right through that's alright, you can cover this hole on the other side of the knob with a bit of leather with your initials - which you should put on anyway )
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If you have a drill press it really helps right now, you're supposed to drill 5 holes in each circle, exactly where your awl marks are my forstner bit was travelling a little bit on the first hole so I pre-drilled all the remaining holes to guide it. Note: this is a lot of drilling with the forstner bit. After every hole check its temperature and if it's too hot to touch (or if you see smoke while drilling) spray it with water and wait a few seconds. High temperature has the ability to anneal your drill bit and then you basically have to throw it away, it's useless. Ok so this is what it looks like at this point, kinda interesting in a strange way Then I cut them on the bandsaw and there you have it, 3 artisan star knobs A little bit more pleasant to the eye and to the touch than the plastic ones. When you get to that stage you're starting to feel that you're making something nice
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Next step is make star nuts, we need 3 of them. Like I said before you can buy plastic ones but you'll still need to make at least one to operate your big bolt. So here's how you make them: First you need some hardwood, ideally a little thicker than your plywood. I repurposed an old cutting board that we never used, it's about 21mm thick First you draw 3 circles and mark the center and 5 equally spaced marks with an awl. If you need some help with the mark here's a pattern (print 3 and glue them on) you should end up with something like this My circles were 54mm in diameter, in hindsight this was a little too big so go around 50mm. You will also need a 20mm forstner bit
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Ok time to talk about hardware You gonna need an M8 bolt, about 100mm long, ideally not threaded all the way. A coach bolt is much easier to install, I didn't have one so I used the one below which made things a little harder. Also you need a couple of matching nuts and a spring that will fit snuggly around that bolt. Make the spring about 2/3 the length of the bolt, or longer. Longer is fine, you can cut it. You will also need a couple of fully threaded bolts, one about 100mm long and one 60mm. I used the ones below and ended up cutting one of them down to 60mm. Mine are M6, in hindsight M7 would probably be better so get M7. The other little doohickeys are called insert nut", get a couple of those that match your bolts. If you can get the ones that are installed with a hex key like the ones below (notice the hex opening) Last but not least get some nylon washers, and also some steel rod. Anything 5-8 mm thick will do, you will need about a 80mm length, and probably something to cut it with (angle grinder or hacksaw) And a couple of wood screws 30-40mm long.
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then I kind of assembled everything on the bench and looked at it from every direction, make sure everything made sense before I glued everything up the clamps were a bad fit initially, so I sanded them down a little you can't see it very well from here but the yellow piece was leaving a big gap with the curved piece on the right, so I threw it away and cut it again a slightly different shape. and then I glued everything up
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that's good enough then I used this piece to trace all the other curved pieces and then because my router method failed, I ended up cutting everything as closely as I could on the bandsaw. Notice the 8 curved pieces, I made them all out the first piece and then cut the shorter ones to size.