Thread: New marking gauges

My first thought was “He’s building a childs tool kit for whichever grandchild is showing promise”; but then realised that half size is probably too small…

So my guess is that you’re building a minature toolchest based upon your own!

Originally Posted by Chief Tiff

My first thought was “He’s building a childs tool kit for whichever grandchild is showing promise”; but then realised that half size is probably too small…

So my guess is that you’re building a minature toolchest based upon your own!

First part correct Chief - at the age they are small enough to use such tools, I don't think the parents would let them play with sharp edges!

But no, I'm not setting out to make a replica of my main tool chest, though of course some tools will be replicas of tools I use every day (same bloke made 'em, after all... ).

It will be a couple of months before all will be revealed; in the meantime I'm going to drip-feed you with a few examples just to whet your appetites.

Cheers,

Is this a relatively new undertaking Ian? I wonder if making your recent micro-plane was the impetus for your current project?

You have mentioned in some of your posts to of late that bits of your body are not quite up to the task at times. Based on that, my guess you're taking a leaf out of the shoemaker's book, and getting a set of tools ready for the elves. That way, when you're just not feeling up to the task you can lay out the bits and bobs on your bench at night, and have them completed for you by the next morning. I can't wait to see the tiny chainsaw!

Lance, you're not too far off the mark - I often envy that old shoemaker! But no, unfortunately, while there are a few gremlins inhabiting my shed (like the one who constantly hides tools as soon as I put them down! ), elves are more conspicuous by their absence..

I've had a passing interest in miniatures for a very long time (as I suspect many do - there is something very appealing about them), and tried my hand at making a few over the years. My first efforts were pretty crude, but I'm getting a bit better with experience & practice. Having my baby metal lathe was a step up because I can make parts more accurately to scale instead of making do with bits & bobs that aren't quite right.

But the tools I'm making atm are for a specific purpose. Settle in for a long haul, I have a couple of pretty ambitious ideas as part of the project, and there's bound to be a few false starts and re-runs along the way. I won't show you much more 'til it's finished, but if all goes according to plan, it will be revealed in due course. I'm trying to keep a pictorial record as I go, so there'll be a few retrospectives when it's all done & dusted....
Cheers,
Ian

Ian,
Once again you have produced some stunning Tools, I’m tempted to make further comments, regarding your own comments [emoji6]but feel I would just be bashing a all ready broken record.

I think i have an idea of what you are up too, but will patiently wait(Quite hard when your inpatient) for the grand unveiling.

Cheers Matt.

Ian, these are gorgeous.

From my own professional work I know that scaling in any direction is tricky. As you said it is not simply by applying factors to the dimensions. Often the question is also what to apply scaling to. E.g. length, mass, volume, area, etc. You are doing a great job there.

Looking forward to more to come.

Sent from my SM-G781B using Tapatalk

Inspirational craftsmanship IanW. Looking forward to the rest of your reveals.

Ian, they wouldn't look out of place in the Veritas catalogue!

There’s been some additions to the mini-tool family. I used some scraps of steel from other projects to make a couple of 'sets' of mini-chisels. I made “London pattern” handles for them, and one of my mini-planes came in handy for planing the corners of the little blanks into octagons: 1 Preparing handle blanks.jpg

This is the easiest way I know to do these handles – plane the corners first, then pop the blank in the lathe & turn the end parts: 2 Crows ash handle.jpg

I’ve always liked the look of this pattern & I made some for a few old chisels when I first got a lathe (took me most of a weekend to make three handles that were a reasonably close match, iirc! ). However, I decided after a while that I preferred the simpler style of handle like on the old Stanley 750s for chisels I use a lot. I don’t envisage using these minis all day, so I went for looks over comfort in this case.
Here are the first three mortise chisels, a 1.5mm (from a scrap of HSS), a 3.2mm & a 5mm from scraps of oil-hardening steel that I hardened after shaping: 3 Mortise set.jpg

They worked quite well on a quick test: 4 Chopping mortise.jpg
I didn’t complete the mortise & check it for square, but I reckon I will find it hard to keep such short chisels perpendicular when I do actually make something with them. We’ll see.

I also started on a set of BE chisels: BE set.jpg

These are more fuss to shape, and I still have to make the blade for the middle size of this set. I started out thinking I’d have a go at forge-welding some bolsters on them, but my smithing skills are very limited and it’s hard to keep such small bits of metal hot long enough to do any serious work on them, so I gave up on that idea pretty quickly and just squared up the end of the blade to form a crude sort of bolster. None of the chisels needs to be struck very hard and they are only going to have occasional light use, so I think they’ll serve well enough as-is.

I realised as I was setting out the mortises rather clumsily with a regular-sized gauge that I'm going to need a mini mortise gauge to go with the chisels. Not sure I can shrink a screw-operated mechanism to half scale, but I'll give it a go when I finish the project I started on this afternoon but it's going to keep me busy for a few days at least so don't expect a mortise gauge any time soon......
Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

... when I do actually make something with them.

The plot thickens, so it's not just for display purposes. A travelling woodwork instruction class delivered via a Punch and Judy show?

Originally Posted by LanceC

The plot thickens, so it's not just for display purposes. A travelling woodwork instruction class delivered via a Punch and Judy show?

We’re not going to talk about the plot Young Lance,it’s all hush hush secret whispers.
Besides didn’t Judy have a big mouth [emoji6].

Cheers Matt.

Well Lance, I do plan to use these mini tools as much as I can on one major project, partly to demonstrate they do "work", partly as a challenge & partly to enhance their appeal. Not sure how I'll go, I can see there'll be much temptation to reach for their full-sized brethren at times, but I'll try to stay "pure" as much as I can. The project is going to need a couple of 'specialty' tools, & I'm still tossing up whether to make these as well or just 'borrow' them from my tool cupboard. I have several like the little plane above, & my 1/2" shoulder plane that qualify as half scale (or even a bit less). I'll be starting with stock that has mostly been through the thicknesser, so there won't be any heavy sizing of pieces. I'll mostly be eliminating any evidence of machine work.

What I did notice yesterday when playing with the mortise chisels is that the mallet (which is just a little less than half the size of my regular everyday mallet), really lacks "authority". There isn't enough mass in the head to give the chisel a good sharp rap. The wood I used for the head is Moreton Bay Ash (Corymbia tesellaris), which iis supposed to have a density of about 1.0, but this wood came from a youngish tree in our backyard that died from Phytophera & drought, so it's likely on the low end of the density spectrum. I'll have a rummage through the odds & sods bin and see what I can find that might make a more weighty head without getting too far out of scale....

As a family member remarked a few days ago "too much time on my hands"....
Cheers,

They'd be just the thing for building a dolls house, do I remember you saying one was on your list of projects.

Originally Posted by IanW

What I did notice yesterday when playing with the mortise chisels is that the mallet (which is just a little less than half the size of my regular everyday mallet), really lacks "authority". There isn't enough mass in the head to give the chisel a good sharp rap. The wood I used for the head is Moreton Bay Ash (Corymbia tesellaris), which iis supposed to have a density of about 1.0, but this wood came from a youngish tree in our backyard that died from Phytophera & drought, so it's likely on the low end of the density spectrum. I'll have a rummage through the odds & sods bin and see what I can find that might make a more weighty head without getting too far out of scale....

Halving the linear dimensions will mean that the volume (and assuming the same density, the mass) will be one eighth of the original. You might need to add weight with some metal in the middle to get it to feel right.