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Manbench Industries; Purveyors of general mayhem since 1994, a blog to follow the crazed, possibly deranged projects and emotive musings, of an undergraduate engineer, and an apprentice organ builder who have always felt they were born in the wrong age. Follow us as we, re-write history, learn lost skills, discover strange new worlds, break things, rant at things, mend things, make new things and generally find ways of passing the day instead of doing "proper work" !

Sunday 22 December 2013

Box Joint Jig Part I


So I decided the other day that it would probably be useful to have a box jointing table saw sled knocking about the shop, so I decided to take a Sunday morning to knock one together, I like to think that the readers of this blog are pretty mechanically minded so I'll let you fathom out how it works from the photos. It's a simple little affair but has some adjustment abilities for other blade sizes, timber stock ect... 

Here are some photos of samples and the jig itself, for your interest...



Rear and front,


The Carpenter. 

Thursday 5 December 2013

Box to Musical Box

An interesting little workshop project fitted into free time over the last few days was this little task of turning a wooden trinket box into a musical box.

The first job was to accommodate the spring break mechanism so I needed to drill the box accordingly and fit a bearing plate and pin, to allow the musical movement to play. 


These were made from an odd end of brazing wire and a brass scrap. The movement was then fitted into place with machine screws and the winding key accommodated on the bittom of the box. Endless tinkering with the set up then ensued to ensure proper working.



 The movement now plays when the lid is opened and is silenced when shut. The box is wound from underneath. The next jobs are to fit a decorative cover to the movement and fit feet to raise the box off of the floor.


The Carpenter.