There's Gott'a be a Better Way - Part Deux

P. McKinley

P. McKinley

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Jan 27, 2008
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This installment is titled: Leveling the Frog

I'm putting together a wrought iron frog for the front of a sheath using an old spike from the barn on our farm. At no time in the process have I had a flat, level surface(s) suitable for drilling/tapping a hole into the center of the base of the piece shown below.

How do I hold this piece level and perpendicular to the tap?
I do NOT have a well equipped machine shop. Jerry rigging is my MO.

-Peter







 
Drill a shallow hole into your board the diameter of the head, this will give you a more stable base than flat. You can then reference flat from your drill board to the flat you want to drill.
Grasp with Vice-Grips or anything else that is short with square edges. I have a pair with broad flat jaws that I could lay flat on the drill board and then grab the part. This is roughly how I would go about it with minimal tools.
 
I think I would have drilled and tapped the hole first thing. Then chuck a bolt with the head cut off into the drill press and use files to shape the stud or chick it into a hand held drill and use the grinder.

Could you drill a hole into a block of wood, then split the block so to clamp the piece into it? Make the hole the size of the stud, and when you cut through it, the saw curf should allow you to get a hold of it. Maybe?
 
Might be too complicated, but if you had a couple of carriage bolts,nuts, and scrap flat bar laying around, you could drill through a small board and the flat bar and basically clamp it to the piece you want to tap. Just drill and tap straight through the flat bar too.

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Cody beat me to it.

First things first, don't do it that way next time Peter. :p :cool:

If you start by making a flat side, then drill and tap... then you can use that as your foundation. You can screw the material to a piece of steel for filing/sanding. And you can put it on a threaded stud (aka a bolt with the head cut off ;)) and chuck it up in a hand drill or drill press, which makes it very easy to make it round, symmetrical, and smooth.


But since you already have it shaped, without a tapped hole... you're screwed.


LMAO, just kidding.


IMHO, your best option would be to utilize that nice flute that you filed around the stud. Cut two pieces of dowel stock that will fit down into that flute, fairly snug. Then you can put the stud in a drill press vise. You'll clamp down against the dowel material, and it will pinch against the stud, without marring or crushing anything.

You may have to make some dowel material to fit it... IDK.

That's just how I would do it at this point (even though I have a lathe and all that good stuff). :)
 
Cut slots in some thin pine, clamp it in a drill vise. As you tighten the vise, the iron will crush the pine until it reaches the square sides. Level the table, so the pin is flat to the bit. Even if the pin moves, it should just dig into the pine and be held even more securely.
 
You've gotten some sound advice so far...but none that are in my opinion in the true spirit of jerry riggin'. In an effort to remedy that, I offer the following:

Go with Nick's advice on the dowels to fit that groove with a few "tweaks". First, drill a hole in your board for the frog to fall into. Instead of proper fitting dowels, use some round needle files with some tape on them to protect the frog's finish (extra points if it's duck tape). Then, set the frog down in the hole, the files will sit evenly on the board (that is, if you didn't go crazy with the tape...), holding the frog between them. Add some duck tape on top if the file ends to keep them from moving. Clamp a small piece of wood on either side of the square ends, on top of the taped down files (or a couple pieces of square steel instead of wood). Clamped good, it'll keep the frog from spinning and also hold down the files from moving.

After this is all set up, you can find it isn't in the correct position and have to start all over, ultimately using an entire roll of duck tape as well as a roll of bailing twine you forgot you had ;).

In all seriousness, I feel for your predicament. And, as demonstrated above, I am no stranger to having to reverse engineer my mistakes.... :). Hope it works out for you, whatever you decide (I vote for duck tape...).


Jeremy
 
Nick, Cody, et al,

Thanks for the help.

The method you describe is exactly how I would do this if I had a piece of square stock to begin with.......

....or, if I had chosen to clamp it vertically in my drill press vice and tap prior to shaping. So, yes, I realized I was screwed at some point about mid-shaping. I did consider doing just that, but I couldn't get a good, solid fit in my vice.

The issue was that I never did have, or was able to create that flat surface with which to index from for tapping before I shaped the piece. I started with a hex-headed spike(like the ones shown below) and used the rounded-off head as the top of the stud.



I'm likely just going to do something akin to what Big Chris was describing.

-Peter
 
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