New Jaws for the Vice

This old record No. 6 vice belonged to my grandfather. Over the years, the jaws had become cracked. I have lots of old files and had a brainwave that these would be ideal for making replacement jaws. Files are made from hardened and tempered steel, and have slanted, ridged teeth which I reckoned would  be excellent for gripping stuff in a vice. I cut out rectangular sections of the correct dimensions using an angle grinder. The steel was too hard to drill, so I had to anneal it by heating to a red heat with a blow torch in the vicinity of the mounting holes and allowed it to cool slowly. Once the holes were drilled, they were countersinked.

My Side Gate

I designed this gate in Autocad several years ago. Autocad comes in very handy because if you draw curves, it tells you the length of the curve. This is very useful because it allows you to estimate the length of a straight piece of iron pre-bending. All the scrolls were cold bent around old pulleys and round bars of various diameters held in a vice. Rather than cutting the iron for each section, I used the leverage of a long length to aid bending and then cut off the waste. I used a long bar with a slot welded onto the end for additional bending operations. Some heating was probably necessary to heat and match up the scrolls which were identical on both sides.
I used 2 x 1 box for the perimeter of the gate. I decided to make a polygon for the top, which gave the appearance of a semi-circle. I divided up the straight length of box into equal sections, cut slots in three of the four sides between each section and bent the box into a curved shape. I tried to make the slots v-shaped to so that the slots would close up ok. Then I welded everything closed and ground everything smooth.
Total build time was about 80 hours.

Battling slugs!

If you live in a damp climate like I do, you know how slugs and snails can have a devestating effect on young plants. Usually the buggers don't eat weeds, only your newly planted annuals! If you grow plants from seeds in pots, don't transplant them into the ground while they are small . Instead wait until they have developed sufficient foliage and are beginning to become pot bound and struggling before planting. If they are attacked by slugs at this stage, they can afford to lose some leaves. Also don't forget to keep your pots where they can't be attacked during the night. If the pots are grouped together sprinkle a trail of slug pellets around the pots to act as a barrier.