How to Make a Leatherworkers Clamp or Stitching Pony

hi well in this film I'm gonna make a leather stitching pony also known as a leather workers clam and it's a little wooden tool you hold between your legs to hold a piece of leather to make it easier to stitch it and the reason I want to make one of these is I've accumulated now quite a few Bowl turning hooks and I want to make some protective covers for them so here's my little supply of alternating hooks quite a few different designs now and different shapes so I want to make little leather pockets to go over these and I've been looking out for a few old leather working tools so I've got a few little bits and pieces now of leather and a few little tools so I'll make this clam which will hold the piece of leather while I stitch they're quite expensive to buy in the UK to about ninety pounds or so so I thought well I make one for two or three quid at a scrap so here goes well I've prepared a rough pencil mock-up what I intend to make I was find this is quite a good idea just to sketch out roughly there's all key elements and with the stitching Pony it's really the height from you actually sit on it so it's a height from the chair on which you're sitting to this little top working area and that's about 16 inches it's making sure the bolt that you use to adjust a pony is so not exactly where your knees rub and it's to make sure you've got enough clearance for your hands at the top of the stitching pony so I've done a 45 degree bevel and they're really the main features but you'll see it as I work along here's the wood I'm going to be using is some off cuts from flooring so one of my neighbors was laying a new floor and there were these oak off cuts the tongue them grooved but I can cut the tongues and grooves off quite easily and it's quite nice material actually it's good quality nice hardwood so really ideal for this sort of thing and of course it's free which is even better still so the first part I'm doing is marking off the uprights for two uprights and for these I'm going to cut two 16 inch the width of the plank isn't really critical I mean this particular plank at the moment is four inches wide and by the time I've cut off it would probably come down when I've cut off the tongues and grooves it will probably come down to about three inches wide which is quite a nice sort of width actually about three inches so I'll cut these two 16-inch limps and I'll also cut off the tongue and groove elements as well so that's now ready for cutting I've now got the two 16-inch uprights cut out and I say sizes don't really matter so you can just adapt it to suit whatever wood you've got available the next job now is to make the top thicker so I've got an old off cut here again it's nice and evoke and it's got this little lip on it so actually it's fairly well suited for this so I'm just going to glue it on and then slice it off you could use just more of this sort of clanking so just glue another little filler to would fare to thicken it up as all you're needing to do at this stage is just thicken up the pieces of wood at the top so doesn't really matter this piece I'd suggest you make it about two inches two and a half inches just picketing piece to glue on so that's the next step well I'm just planning up these sides so they're nice and smooth and I'm just using a little try square set square geometry set here to get a 45 degree angle so I'm just marking in the wood I'm going to need to cut off so it will be these two far bits here showing it to cut off I'm now just gluing these blocks on it's going to spread to glue place the wood on and hold that while it's gluing I'll just pop a couple of nails in like this is the first one done right I now have two upright pieces with the blocks on the inside and my next job will be to actually cut the 45-degree angles so I'm going to cut the tops off and there I've just been polishing up the ends here to get them nicely shaped so I've now got 245 three degree cuts there so that's the ends or top the clam stitching Pony so now I'm going to make the base I've now cut out the base block so it's just an ordinary block of wood and I'm going to screw and glue it on one side and then have it hinging on the other side so I'll get that screwed and glued next the other thing I need to do it's going to swivel on a bolt going through it so I'm going to drill a hole through the middle of this base block for the swiveling bolt that it would go on to be a hole straight for the middle there so I'm just going to fill the screw holes now for this block fine I'll just pop some glue on here such a hot day today that this will dry very quickly hurry up that's the glue Longo's of lock and inch-and-a-quarter school I'm using they're not critical and pop that in that will clamp it nicely so if it dries with the glue that's one I'm going to check all my alignments once again I want this try to get it aligned as possible I went perfect that that's doesn't matter a little bit of variation all right like that and now I'll screw the next screw in I'm using one of these combination countersink and a little bit and I find these quite useful as you drill the pilot hole for the screw and you countersink it at the same time pop that in what I'm now going to be making is a little extension to the base unit so there's a little plank of wood here and this piece will have a hinge so this arm can hinge in or out and I'll just zoom in a bit so you can see that a bit closer so there'll be a hinge attached that additional bit of base and then this arm will be able to go in and out to narrow and widen the jaws of the clam so next job is to fit this upright bit of clam to this new additional base the easiest way of fitting this additional data base is simply but a screwdriver down for the center hole that I've drilled for the swiveling bolt so it all lines up nicely and then simply will again using one of the little little bits with a countersink just drill each side put a screw in put some glue in so I'll have one there she just screwdriver does getting away a little bit so I'll hold that steady that looks fine a little bit more deeper I think hinging is very straightforward it's just matter of place to hinge in position and then just flow around a surf course where the hinge needs to go to add it and screw it and that bits done just popping this final screwing here out quite a tight fit that's what I wanted that's fine I'm now just going to screw the holes will make the screw holes for the upright so again I'm using quite a narrow little bit here set the screws to be lovely and tight in there holes so I've now fixed the hinge so the top part is all done you'll notice fit with the block here at the bottom I made it very slightly wider than the chores so there's a little gap between the drawers and a two reasons for that one is I'm going to lever line the jaws so I need to lie a bit of space for the lever to come in also it's not a bad thing if to have a bit of a gap because it's a lever going in to sit snugly and vertically against those walls it almost needs a bit of a cap so I said I've got a bit of a gap there one could probably have a tiny bit more of a gap if you wanted so my next job now is to put through the bolt which will tighten the clamp so the bolt will go through around about here you want to compromise with the bolt because you wanted to clear your legs so it's got to be about eight or nine inches up but you want it as low down as you can so you can put larger items in the clamp so without fouling the bolt so a bit of a compromise but I put the bolt about there you can also do two holes and then you have a higher hole in a lower hole if you want to as well have the bolt in different positions then if you are doing a particularly long piece of lever you can bolt it or down and well you just have to knock it with your legs now in the game who are put in free bolt adjusting holes I haven't quite come through so need to make that drill bit a little longer gets quite hot for the oak I'm just cleaning off the baseboard piece at the moment making it rounded so it doesn't bite in very well one completed leather pony I might line the drawers with leather I'll see but the idea essentially is loose Nicholas bit you put your lever to be sewn in the jewels tighten it up and then it's exactly the right height for stitching it all holds it nice and firmly in place it does swivel so if I want to turn it around a bit I can't do and that's taken me just over two hours to make using all my scrap materials so it's not costing and I now have a nice level pony or a clam Sadler's clam hope you like all it so I'll be making a few tool covers and I'll put you put a video up about that sometime so here's a closer view of the Finnish Pony just so you can see exactly what it's all about so we've got the head here with a wooden blocks important thing here is beveled off at 45 degrees we have then have these out side height boards there are 16 inches so that's a comfortable working height for me you could always change it if you want to this is the bolt foot clamps the two bits together clamps your head so just an ordinary m8 wing nut bolt this side don't forget is fixed so I've just screwed and glued this side is hinged so just a one side opens and closes the whole thing swivels around on this m8 all the screws are m8 on the baseboard and the baseboard is about 18 inches whatever you find comfortable for width so you just sit across that your thighs rest on it and clamp it down and it's as simple as that so I'll be putting this to good use to make some tool covers and I hope you've enjoyed watching the video and if you've got any questions or any issues you want to ask me about with this one please just add it in the comments below and I'll get back to you good luck hope it's been useful and as I say thanks for watching you

Channel: Harry Rogers

Views: 266,636

Keywords: Harry Rogers, leather, leatherworking, stitching, pony, clam, clamp, stitch, stitched, working, sheath, knife, tool, re-enactment, prepper, oak, cover, bodger, bodgers.org.uk, a Leatherworkers Clamp or Stitching Pony

Id: Dxp4YjY85dM

Length: 14min 20sec (860 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 12 2013