I’ve been playing at single parenting this week while Jenn is out of town on business… I don’t think the PTSD is too severe, but it’s pretty much wiped out shop time. I did manage to steal some time over the weekend to get my new auxiliary bench up, and install a couple of new tools:
First up is a new patternmaker’s vise. This one is the new clone that a number of places sell. I’m hoping to acquire an old Yost version of the Emmert in the near future, which will replace this, but I got a really good deal on this one. I have to say that so far I’m very impressed with the vise. The castings certainly aren’t pretty, but functionally it’s really fantastic. It’s going to make shaping totes a much faster and easier process.
The second addition is a Grizzly compact bender, which you can see mounted behind the vise. I bought this to simplify the bends such as the one at the rear of the small miter planes. It’s a really simple contraption, but it’s a very welcome addition, and makes it MUCH easier to get precise bends without having to do much tweaking after the fact. It’s a tool I basically use for about two minutes every few weeks or so, so it lives under the bench, and mounts in under a minute.
I also made a start on the rear infill for the steel miter I’m working on. I put the recently-completed bronze miter to use tuning up the bed and shooting the end. The miter board in this picture, by the way, is Evenfall Studios’ deluxe shooter — a fantastic design, perfectly executed. It’s a much better board than I would ever have bothered to make for myself – and there’s something to be said for that.
Rough tuning the bed is done with a panel plane, which gives me a good head-start at flat along the bed’s length. I have a camber on my panel, though, so I followed it up with the miter plane to eliminate any hollow lingering from the panel.
Now I can start fitting the plane and hopefully get to the peining this weekend.