Popular Woodworking 2009-12 № 180, страница 45

BIG WOOD VISE

Classic Vise Screw

We're a bit obsessed with good vise hardware, and we think you should be, too. A good vise makes every operation easier. Good workholding allows you to focus on working instead of pondering, "How am I going to hold that?"

Woodworker Joe Comunale has taken his metalworking skills and machines and used them to make amazing wooden vise screws, something that hasn't been available to purchase for a long time.

Wooden vise screws advance faster than metal ones, never mark your work with grease and hold as tightly as you'd ever need. Comunale's company, BigWoodVise.com, makes wooden vise screws with the fit and finish of a piece of furniture. And they are both ajoy to install and use. He offers several versions for different benches, including one with a Shaker-style hub. We installed his Classic Vise Screw on the bench on last month's cover and couldn't be happier.

BIG WOOD VISE ■ bigwoodvise.com

FOURTH FIELD Red Tape

This winner is from the category of: Why was this not invented before? Yes. Adhesive clear tape printed with an inch scale.

Called Red Tape and invented by a Georgia entrepreneur, this cool product allows you to put a rule almost anywhere, then remove it without hurting the surface below. It's a 55'-long roll of clear adhesive tape with a continuous ruler printed on it in red.

The tape can be stuck to your workbench then removed if you please. It's great to have a ruler stuck to your bench that allows you to quickly ascertain how long or wide a piece is by simply shifting it over the tape.

You can stick the tape to the curved arm bow of a Windsor chair and use it to lay out the spacing of the spindles. Or you can even stick it to your computer monitor to pull dimen

sions from a photo or use it to size objects in CAD or a photo-editing program.

I used Red Tape on my monitor to pull dimensions off a photograph of a Shaker hanging cupboard. It was very handy and easier than holding a ruler up to the screen or even working from a print-out.

The tape is marked in ^ths, repeats every 12" and does not stretch, as far as we can tell. The printingjob is quite accurate.

VERITAS Dovetail Saw

Veritas shocked a lot of woodworkers when it introduced its new dovetail saw for three reasons:

■ It looks modern but feels like a vintage saw in the hand.

■ It cuts extremely well.

■ It's $65.

While most premium Western saws are easily $125 or more, this new Veritas saw opened up the Western saw market to a new range of woodworkers who might have considered buying aJapanese handsaw (or none at all).

Or, even worse, they might have tried to make do with a cheap home-center saw and given up dovetailing altogether.

The Veritas saw is a remarkable combination of old technology and new. The old: the handle shape comes from a vintage saw and it is attached to the saw with a bolt like a handplane tote - very clever. The new: The back of the saw is made

VERITAS

■ leevalley.com ■ 800-871-8158

using stainless steel powder, glass fiber and a polymer resin.

How does it cut? Brilliantly. Thanks to a slightly relaxed rake, the saw starts easily in end grain and is smooth in the cut. The comp any also makes a fine-tooth version of this saw and a crosscut version. That means you can buy two saws for a bit more than you would spend to purchase a single saw from a competitor.

14 ■ Popular Woodworking December 2009