Editor’s note: Our Mind Upon Mind series is a nod to a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column (also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years”), in which Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement. To that end, we’ve asked you what else you have thought of, tried out and improved upon after building projects from our books.
Send us your own ideas! Email [email protected]. You can read more about the submission process here.
Today’s pick is courtesy of Chris Corich. Thanks, Chris!
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
A mistake led to a usability upgrade on my doe’s foot.
The angle between the “toes” is still a perfect 90°, but they’re rotated with respect to the long edges of the board. One is 40°ish, so the other is (math!) 50°ish.
This allows one to set up with the fixture pointing in slightly different directions on the bench, which can be real nice when one way happens to cover your holdfast holes.
— Chris Corich
Love when a bug becomes a feature! Thank you for sharing yours!
That’s clever. Good idea.
WAIT!, You’re saying I can notch both ends? and make one end look kinda weird? I only have one notch. I don’t know how to process this new information let alone go and make the back end of my board look weird.
Thanks for the tip!
Ran into this last week, sounds like a perfect solution, thanks for sharing!
I also fully recommend painting doe feet and bench hooks, they look great after a little rough living and they’re harder to lose.
Nick, just hijacking your comment to tell you I love the milk paint book. I have made half a dozen batches now, it’s amazingly empowering. The local art store is amused that I discovered color theory in my 40s. The kids have a rainbow of offcut blocks, every tool chest now has painted components, and shop appliances are next! Trying to get a few chairs as well. It’s the best little book I’ve read in years. Thanks!
-Chris in Indianapolis
Thanks Chris, such kind words! Looking forward to seeing pics someday soon!
Clever, and makes perfect sense. Same reason why spanners have their heads slightly to one side.
Why not just drill a hole in the doe’s foot?
Why not just drill a hole through the doe’s foot.
Clever! Ta.
John, you’d have to drill a new hole for every length of board
[Whoops hit send too soon…]
The idea of the doe’s foot is to place it wherever it’s needed to hold a load against the planing stop. When it blocks the only nearby holdfast hole, you’re left with either drilling another holdfast hole in your bench, or workholding via another means. This off angle trick makes the doe’s foot slightly more useful.