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Fixturing a workpiece against the stop (bench dog and so on) is very common in woodworking, since it allows not to apply pressure by using vise. However, in metalworking it's rare, because more rigid setup is usually required and risk of damaging a part by vise jaws is lower (at least, it's easy to use softer spacers made of copper, aluminum or plastic). In traditional Japanese metalworking, vise is almost unknown tool. Parts were usually fixtured using various jigs, utilizing wooden wedges and metal brackets. One example of it is せん台 sen dai - scraping bench. I decided to follow the same way with making my tantō: not to use vise, but make a jig to hold it.
I made it of relatively soft and easy to cut basswood plank, then glued pieces together. Side pieces helping to keep blade vertical, front piece works as a stop. There is no wedges or friction parts - blade holds itself in this jig when force is applied when it's being filed with two-handed file I made before.
Advantage of two-handed file is that material removal rate is significantly higher, long scraper-style strokes helping to keep curvature uninterrupted and smooth, process is way less noisy because of virtually no vibration, usually caused by file, jumping on every unevenness and on workpiece edges.
To ensure comfortable work, jig should be tilted to make filing surface parallel to natural trajectory of hands. Here, I'm using some cedar bar leftovers for that. 20lbs barbell serves as weight to make everything steady.
There are not many Beckett pictures that come on the market these days but here is an old Ilford print I picked up the other day and with a bit of tlc it has not come out too bad,
It is Beckett Guy Arab UF JTH 260 outside the PMT in Stoke.
Large metal drawer with some of my reference files in plain yellow folders. Labels are written with my Brother P-Touch 1280VP.
Ganda, a nine month old Clouded Leopard, rests in the San Diego Zoo's nursery, where she is currently under quarantine. She'll join the zoo's Backstage Pass program tomorrow.
Closeup on a purple nail file that has different grades of emery paper on each side. This was a giveaway from a superannuation company that we use, and has been well used. I hate long nails and only ever remember to cut my nails at work when I am on the keyboard. These days I can tolerate even less nail that ever, and I can only put it down to the use of touchscreens like my iPhone and iPad.
Day 61 of 365 Days in Colour - Day 3 of January, Purple.
Taken with iPhone 4S.