Skill acquisition is always a pleasure. Some find it so pleasurable that they install a new one every few months! I have a friend like that. He’s acquired many skills of the building trades and is very competent at them all … although his greatest love is freehand slate carving to make all sorts of finely crafted things, often with a Welsh flavour seeing as how he’s a Newcastle Emlyn lad.
So, I get him in to paint the whole house (indoors) since I know he’ll do an excellent job. He stayed with us for a fortnight+ to do the work. The evenings were spent in the woodworking workshop ……….
I’d made a nice oak box in which one of his green man slate carvings was incorporated into the box lid. This had caught the eyes of many of his slate-object customers and so he felt the need to learn the making of wooden boxes and frames. He’s a very quick learner as he’s already familiar with many tools, design approaches and all the other stuff common to making-skills of many kinds.
His first box is as shown in the pics, made from some offcut bits of old cherry and Honduras mahogany I had, too small to make anything substantial but too nice to put in the scrap bin. As y’all will know, box making teaches many woodworking design and making skills; and involves the use of many tool types.
The lad has no woodworking workshop, though, as he’s somewhat peripatetic, working all over West Wales. But to make wooden boxes and frames he’ll need some sort of workbench. So we designed one that’s just about portable; and includes various shop-made accessories. See next post for the first “box maker’s Moxon”.
Lataxe
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Being a lazy ole blighter, I'd put off improving the workbench facilities for those many woodworking operations for which a Moxon vice is recommended. The basic version raises the height of workpieces needing actions that are better performed when the workpiece is higher than a typical benchtop.
My painter/slate-artist friend, though, wanted some form of workbench with which to make small boxes and frames into which he'll incorporate some of his slate work items. A portable and enhanced Moxon seemed appropriate, since he'll be hand-tooling for the most part, with most operations other than planing better with the workpiece at elbow rather than waist height.
Commercial Moxon vises are expensive! Also, any such vise for the new box making lad would need to include a small workbench enabling the use of hold-downs, stops and other gubbins to stabilise or present the box parts to be worked on. So we made one, which provided not only a workbench but another opportunity for him to learn more woodworking skills.
The materials used were a half sheet of cheap 1" thick plywood, cut up and glued into a 3" thick piece, for the core; some 2"x 4" softwood scrap supports; various hardwood offcuts to clad the edifice and to provide a more resilient (and flat) work surface.
The Moxon vise was made from two old G-cramps with their non-screw-end jaws cut off, since they incorporated acme threads and could easily be mounted to emulate Moxon-style vise movements.
We bought some 19mm hardwood dowelling to make the dogs, planing stops and so forth. This greatly reduces the cost (e.g. £12:50 per commercial metal dog but home-made wooden dogs with mini ball-catches to stop them dropping out of the dog holes only £1.04 each).
The bench wasn't fully complete by the time he left for his next job but only the sawn-off G-cramps and T-track needed to be mounted. He tells me that he's finished it now .... but is composing a woodworking tool list. :-)
Meanwhile, I decided I needed my own version of this small bench edifice. See next post.
Lataxe
Well over a year ago, I had a member of the ladywife's Women's Institute in the workshop (!) as one of those who had expressed an interest in doing some woodworking. She was enthusiastic enough to make three items (a small box, an end-grain chopping board and a small hall table) as well as to set up her own workshop.
I aided and abetted her in her tool acquisition, one of which was a Moxon vise bought on my recommendation. It turned out that she didn't get on with the Moxon, so I bought it from her at the price she paid. It's been sat in a cupboard for 18 months, gathering dust.
After my painting/slate-carving friend made his Moxon-style workbench, I had a fit of envy and decided to make my own smaller version using the dust-gathering Moxon vise in that cupboard. It'll serve not just as a vise but as a small work table higher than the benchtop by some five inches, good for all sorts of operations on smaller parts where working them on the standard bench leads to backache from the bending over.
Over the years I've acquired all sorts of work-holding devices, many of which you can see festooning my new Moxon vise/workbench. I intend to set up many more such work holders, including frame clamps, mini-plank glue-uppers and who knows what else, in service to box making.
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In past times, I often poked fun at various jig-making fellows, suggesting they had no time for woodworking as they were always making jigs. Now I've become one of their number! Too much reading of US woodworking magazines, probably. :-)
Lataxe
Your friend is lucky to have such a skillful mentor. Great box design and portable bench. You definitely have plenty of hold down gizmos and jigs.
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