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Hi Howard, Don't know if you've made your choice yet, but I was using my pattern makers vise today to work on a chair mock up, and took a few pictures to show some of the ways I find it so useful. Also a couple of days ago I made a locking pin (one of those jobs which I put off for ages...

Thanks Jason. Axminster do 125mm tenoning heads: http://www.axminster.co.uk/product.asp?pf_id=23484&name=tenoning+heads&user_search=1&sfile=1&jump=0 so they should fit unless I'm missing something (I haven't had that much experience of spindle molders....) I'm really talking about quite small...

Hi Rod, I can't think of a reason :D Marcus

I have an Emmert clone and mostly like it. There is an issue with the jaws tending to drift out of parallel, which means often having to adjust them a bit when tightening them up. This is annoying, but not very. If I had time I would work out some kind of locking pin to keep them parallel...

Hi, just wondering if anyone owns/has experience of these? http://www.kityuk.net/429spindle.html I'm looking for something which will cut tenons for cabinetry, quickly and accurately, in a single pass, and to use for light rebating and grooving. I don't care about its ability to do anything...

Boat nails come in various gauges - the ones commonly available are 6 through to 14. The higher the number the smaller the nail. I just measured a 14 gauge one and the head is about 6mm across. The wire of the nail is about 2mm diameter. 6mm sounds quite big, but in the flesh it looks quite...

Ah, I thought the top was loose tongue and groove. Better not rove it - the screws allow a bit more flexibility for the timber to move....

You drive the nail through the rove ( a copper washer), snip the end off, then tap the stub with a ball pein hammer until the copper of the nail merges with that of the washer. So you get a copper nail head (which would be counter sunk and so flush) on the outside, and a sort of blob of copper...

Like these? http://www.isaaclord.co.uk/productDetail.aspx?product=835&subCat=48&parentCat=7/48 What might look really lovely - and would be super strong - would be copper boat nails secured with copper roves underneath.... Marcus

Beautiful - I love how the wildness of the timber is set against the regular, formal design - works really well... Marcus

Mike, I believe if you click the "my blog" link at the top of the page you can set up a blog that's hosted on this site and post pictures to that. I'd be interested to see some of your furniture - spalted sycamore and walnut sounds like a nice combination.... Cheers Marcus

I'm with you on that - I work that way when I can, and prefer doing so. Sometimes for me though, particularly with built in stuff,either the (financial) stakes are too high to wing it, or design considerations become more important than process. Cheers Marcus

Because you don't know them doesn't mean that they're not out there! The trouble with our craft is that the prices we need to charge sound scary. I find it helps to see these prices in a wider context though. To me it is astounding what people - lots of people - will happily pay for a wide...

You take the timber and lay it on the rod, and take all the measurements directly off the drawing. This hugely reduces the chance of expensive mistakes, and speeds things up a lot in a complex piece. It also makes the piece easily repeatable in the future.... Marcus.

Thanks to all for your replies and thanks, Mike, for your offer. The possibility of shrinkage hadn't occurred to me - glad I asked! I'm going to do a few experiments and see what happens. Cheers Marcus

This is not comparing like with like at all. Churning out letter blanks is relatively cheap and easy. Edge rounding and finishing them consistently to a high standard is much less so, and takes a considerably bigger investment in such things as equipment, COSH, quality control, skill level...

Seems like tempting fate to me :wink:

Hi, I'm about to start a project which is going to require a lot of quite complex rods. It occurred to me that, since I do most of my design work on the computer these days, it might work to send my files off to a company that does wide format printing and get them to print the rods at 1:1...

Hi Miles, You can use a brush or roller. The only caveat is that once it's gone off it's a b****r to remove, so care is needed! I have no particular preference for this brand - there are several out there. Most are polyurethane based, but apparently there is epoxy based stuff too. NB Don't...

You can get marine ply with a decorative veneer - usually oak or teak - it's used a lot for boat interiors. It's not cheap though! Try Robbins http://www.robbins.co.uk/mar_lamply.htm As has been mentioned you would need to varnish it - you could use a two part varnish...