Wicked Good Gadgets Archives - The WhistleSmith - Wicked Good Whistles Handmade in Maine

Hold It With A Pony Clamp and Vise Setup

Here is a great little setup that will save you some cash and work for almost any project where you need to hold your work at various angles. I got the idea after pricing gun makers and pattern makers vise for the shop and found they ranged in cost from $150. to over $200. I might have gone with the cost but, neither style vise was maneuverable enough to get all the angles I wanted to work with. Mouthpieces are hard to hold without marking them up and need to be held very solidly when scraping and finishing the wind ways. Sooo...I had a swivel vise on hand that was adequate in size for a base and easy to mount and I decided to start there. Out in the wood shop there were two dozen Pony pipe clamps for gluing up wood that were just setting there waiting for something to do. By combining an eighteen inch Pony clamp with the vise, I had a really useful device.

When using this combination, you can clamp the pipe into the vise and get any angle up and down that you wish. You can swivel the vise 90° to move the vise out of your way or move it to directly in front so it is easy and convenient to work on. Open up the Pony clamp and you can hold wide pieces and shorten the clamp to hold small pieces securely. You can press parts together by using the clamp extended and turning the tightening clamp screw to push the parts together. I press the mouthpiece into the tuning slide with this method and it is really slick!

One of the great features of using this combination is the vise is mounted ready to use on its own. Just take out the Pony clamp, set it aside and you can go to work on a project that only requires the vise.

I had the vise and Pony clamp on hand in the shop but you can purchase a similar vise for about $30. and a Pony clamp with a two foot piece of pipe for about $16. at almost any hardware store. Oh, I forgot! you can hold very long pieces up to four feet or even longer by just putting a longer pipe in the Pony clamp.

Photo 1 shows the Pony clamp and vise setup mounted on the work bench. Remember the vise swivels out of the way to the left when you are not using it so you can use the bench without the vise setup being in the way.

Photo 2 is a mouthpiece being finished. The Pony clamp has adhesive backed foam box lining on the inside of the clamps to protect the finish on the mouthpiece.

Photo 3 is another shot of the vise setup showing the tightening screw used to tighten the Pony clamp. The inside jaw of the clamp can be moved anywhere on the pipe to fit wider or longer work pieces.

When you do the math, this Pony clamp and vise setup cost a total $46. and you have a better, more usable tool than the expensive $200. pattern makers vise.

Posted by The WhistleSmith at 9:40 PM | TrackBack

Using the Shoe Jig to Make a Shapely Mouthpiece.

The Shoe Jig is a gadget to hold a part when you are grinding or shaping to keep your hands away from moving parts. In the whistle shop, everything has a jig for safety and to make sure the pieces and parts are uniform and correctly shaped. The Shoe Jig holds a piece to grind like a shoe holds your foot...catchy name and descriptive too! This particular jig is made from pine wood plank recycled from a bedstead and has adjustments to fit and hold the whistle mouthpiece tightly. By putting the mouthpiece to be shaped in the jig, every one will be the same curve and length of cut without having to measure them all individually.

Here I am holding a complete mouthpiece, ready to grind the finishing curve on the bottom.

The Shoe Jig ready to be filled with the mouthpiece and placed into the slide vise.

Shoe Jig installed into Slide Vise and mouthpiece being cut to shape with an abrasive drum.

Using the Shoe Jig, you get better results while shortening the time it takes to make a Wicked Good Whistle!

Posted by The WhistleSmith at 6:00 PM | TrackBack

Measuring Up With A Wicked Good Caliper

While going through GarrettWade.com looking for another useful tool or two, I found this giant set of Wicked Good Vernier Calipers (invented by Pierre Vernier, France,1639 for all you history buffs) listed in the woodworking tools. In the whistle shop, everything gets measured and measured and measured...so I was really excited to find this oversize tool. Here is their description and specifications for the calipers.

"Giant 24" Vernier Caliper, a splendid tool, & easily manageable despite its size
When we first discovered this, we were awestruck. There's just no other word to describe the feeling. It seems such an oddly outsized tool, yet take it up in your hand and you will think of a thousand times you could have used just such a useful measuring device. Virtually identical to a machinist's steel caliper, this one is made of aluminum, so it is easily manageable despite it's large size. A terrific find, and irresistible at this price. You'll want one just to watch your friends gawk.
Capacity: 24" long with a 2-3/4" deep jaw. Graduated in inches and millimeters, outside reading only. The Vernier scale reads in 1/128" and 0.05mm."

This is the perfect tool to do repeat measuring and checking parts for size. I am really impressed with all the things it is useful for, like checking board width and thickness in the wood shop, the distance on sound hole to whistle butt to check initial tuning and the list can go on and on. You will enjoy how light and easy to set these calipers are. Quick measurements require using only one hand to set and hold the slide when checking several measurement on your project. You can purchase this tool without having to take a loan out on your house...$29.95 is a great bargain.

Here I am checking the length of a Low F to make sure there is a good allowance for tuning up and down. The calipers do this job well and are extremely accurate. The whistles in the top row on the wall are on lengths of slide whistle rods that were too short to use and the whistles hanging are in clips made from left over thumb ring parts. Waste not, want not...keep America green!

Posted by The WhistleSmith at 5:48 PM | TrackBack