Swiss Saddler Clam Drawings

[ClaimedVacancy]

Good morning All,

I am new to the Forum, and this is my first post. I have been watching the forum for a good while and finally decided to join.

I've been working with leather for about 11-12 years, on and off. Over the last several years I've grown more serious about it.

I enjoy the Swiss Army style leather works by the various saddlers, and various European styles as I believe they are some of the most tried and true methods to joining pieces of leather together. I too have also started a small collection of original Swiss pouches, etc for continued inspiration.

I use fairly traditional tools when it comes to building leather pieces, and I'm always trying to collect antique examples of tools where I can. I saddle stitch everything, and use at the minimum Ritza 25 tiger thread. Vegetable tanned leather is almost exclusively what I use as well.

I'm certain I will post pictures of my work, but if you are interested my Instagram name is also ClaimedVacancy: https://www.instagram.com/claimedvacancy/

Main Topic:

I followed this particular thread for awhile. I am interested in building the Swiss saddler clam, and I have not found any plans or drawings of said clam. I could spend the next few months in CAD drawing one from all the various images, but I believe there are more accurate drawings out there. 

  https://shop.leder-louis.ch/product/Sattler-Naehzange-schweizer-Modell./587

Can anyone input on this?

Thank you all!

[ClaimedVacancy]

[chuck123wapati]

that is nice looking alright i would love to see how the mechanics work.

[ClaimedVacancy]

Agreed, chuck123wapati.

All that I can tell is that the lower jaw actuates, the foot pedal is pressed to apply pressure to the clamping action. There also appears to be a lock that can be tripped and held in place by a notch.

Based off the pictures the foot pedal has a cam that creates the actuation of the lower jaw, and the steel components apply friction at the right places.

If I don't get any information on plans, drawings, etc, I will start an R&D into building one with baltic birch ply. It's not overly complicated, but the geometry could get tricky.

[dikman]

Interesting. Very nicely designed. The operation looks fairly simple (on the original one), the black bar has two pivot points for the two arms, the foot lever pivots and pushes directly onto the bottom of the left arm to close the jaws. The metal contraption on the foot lever would be a friction lock to keep the jaws closed, with a foot lever to release it. Initially I was visualising a cam inside but that would be unnecessarily complicated.

Not that difficult to make, although ideally the curved arms would need to be steamed and bent for maximum strength. It would be an interesting project, except for the fact that I don't need one.