Frederick Skelly
01-06-2016, 10:40 PM
There's been a few mentions of Sterling, Vesper and Starrett dovetail squares lately. Over the weekend I made two, just to see if I could. In another thread, one of the guys asked me to post pics, so here they are.
The first one is small - about 3 x 1 x 3/8 inches. It's made of maple. I simply drilled a small hole and inserted a piece of 1/16" stainless steel rod as a blade. The rod is easily bent to get it square and keep it square. It's crude, but effective. The only drawback is that the length of the blade is not adjustable.
The second one is roughly 6 x 1 1/2 x 3/4 inches. The blade length is adjustable. It's made of mahogany, finished in amber shellac. The blade is a piece of brass tube that's 1/8 x 3/32 x 6 inches or so. I cut a wedge-shaped mortise in the top to hold the blade. A wedge fits into that mortise to secure the blade. It's easy to square up and seems to work well. If I need a smaller blade, I can easily secure a 1/16 x 1/8 inch blade. Again, it's crude but seems to work well enough. There are obviously other ways to secure the blade - I chose wedges. Initially, I thought about making it small like the maple square. But I found that I really liked the way this larger square fits my hand.
Nothing special or sophisticated here. (I'm no Chris Vesper or Derek Cohen by any stretch of the imagination.) I think of them as prototypes and I'll adjust the design as I use them a while. But they may give others of you better ideas. (If so, please share them back with me.)
Best wishes,
Fred
The first one is small - about 3 x 1 x 3/8 inches. It's made of maple. I simply drilled a small hole and inserted a piece of 1/16" stainless steel rod as a blade. The rod is easily bent to get it square and keep it square. It's crude, but effective. The only drawback is that the length of the blade is not adjustable.
The second one is roughly 6 x 1 1/2 x 3/4 inches. The blade length is adjustable. It's made of mahogany, finished in amber shellac. The blade is a piece of brass tube that's 1/8 x 3/32 x 6 inches or so. I cut a wedge-shaped mortise in the top to hold the blade. A wedge fits into that mortise to secure the blade. It's easy to square up and seems to work well. If I need a smaller blade, I can easily secure a 1/16 x 1/8 inch blade. Again, it's crude but seems to work well enough. There are obviously other ways to secure the blade - I chose wedges. Initially, I thought about making it small like the maple square. But I found that I really liked the way this larger square fits my hand.
Nothing special or sophisticated here. (I'm no Chris Vesper or Derek Cohen by any stretch of the imagination.) I think of them as prototypes and I'll adjust the design as I use them a while. But they may give others of you better ideas. (If so, please share them back with me.)
Best wishes,
Fred