Clamps

[Dewi]

Those are some seriously tidy tools!! Blimey, have you made all of those yourself?

What is the 2nd photo down one? And the planes, are they your own design?

I'm currently addicted to collecting woodworking tools, but I can see that I may well have a new addiction soon... my wife just looked over my shoulder and said "Those tools are really smart" and thats from a woman who's 7 1/2 months pregnant and sick to the back teeth of her husband sitting in the lounge with plans of teardrops, suppliers lists and constantly asking whether this is a good idea or that is worth adding in

Cheers, Dewi

[Mauleskinner]

Second pic is a router plane...used for levelling the bottom of dados, grooves, etc., after cutting them by hand. The "foot" on the iron is a little long in that pic...I cut it off pretty short soon after taking that pic.

Most of the stuff isn't my design, just my adaptation of somebody else's idea. The router plan I got from a book called "How to Make Woodwork Tools", by Charles Hayward, available for free on this site: http://www.toolemera.com/Books%20%26%20Booklets/booksplans.html

The bench planes are "Krenov style", which basically means they're laminated sections rather than chopped from a single piece...this article is a good place to get an idea for how they're made: http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/woodworking/1273456.html

One of my internet hangouts is the hand tool forum at http://www.forums.woodnet.net...there's some cool folks there, too, and toolmaking is encouraged. Feel free to join us if you want to start down the slippery slope of toolmaking. There's also a large contingent of collectors there...you'd fit right in.

David

[artfd]

The largest pipe clamps I have have a jaw to jaw distance of approximately TEN FEET.

This idea didn't originate with me, I read about this years ago in something like Popular Mechanics or Mechanix Illustrated.
Use common pipe clamp hardware you can buy most anywhere. Illustations of the basics have already been posted in this thread. Buy 2 10-foot lengths of rigid threaded conduit. These have a female socket welded on one end, and a male pipe thread on the other end. Rigid metal conduit was designed to be simply screwed together to make very long runs, I supposed you could link 2 (or more) 10-foot lengths together for a jaw-jaw distance greatly exceeding 10 feet.
Anyway, the male threads on this type of conduit are compatible with the threads on a common pipe thread element, just slip the sliding part on first, then screw on the adjustable part, and - voila you have a REALLY BIG pipe clamp. You can easily unscrew the clamping elements to store the conduit when not in use. When I bought the rigid conduit lengths, they were much cheaper than threading a long length of pipe would have been.

[Mauleskinner]

NOW you tell me!

Great info