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. To submit your own idea, email [email protected]. You can read more about the submission process here.
Today’s pick is from David Farnum, in Greer, South Carolina.
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
One of the challenges I have when shaving long sticks is getting a good fit – one that’s not too skinny – where the stick fits into the armbow. For a long time, I drilled a mortise using the same bit as I did for the armbow in a piece of 2x scrap, but the simple slot gauge below makes it much quicker and easier to check the size. I already had the 8″-long piece of maple because that’s what I use to check the height of the armbow. Cutting the slots in that gives me one less thing to keep track of.
The gauge is just a series of notches cut a tiny bit wider than what’s labeled. Making the slots a little bigger keeps me from overshooting – when the stick fits the slot, I can carefully fine-tune the last little bit with a scraper or block plane. The stick doesn’t get jammed like it often did in the mortised 2x scrap and rotating it in the slot quickly shows where the high spots are.
— David Farnum
I use a very similiar setup for arrow making to quickly match shaft tapers. Surprisingly accurate.