2 block questions

[Laggard]

1. How do you clamp a 3 mm block in a pair of hemostats without the block breaking?Even at the lightest setting they invariably break.  My self clamping tweezers are not strong enough. 
 

2. Anyone willing to accept Venmo to send me a few blocks?  I can’t spend 10 bucks just to get blocks to replace the broken ones. 
 

Thanks

[Thanasis]

You could increase the pressure of you clamping tweezers, just placing another  kind of clamp around its points...

Thx

[allanyed]

Or a rubber band around the self closing tweezers.

As to replacing two or three blocks, it would probably be easier to make your own.  Good practice for future work 😀

Allan

[VTHokiEE]

6 hours ago, Laggard said:

How do you clamp a 3 mm block in a pair of hemostats without the block breaking?Even at the lightest setting they invariably break.

Different modeling blocks are made from different types of wood. The wood that your blocks are made from made be softer and can’t handle the same pressure other woods can.
 

Let me check if I have any extra 3mm blocks laying around - how many do you need to replace? (Side note and this may not bother you but they probably will look different from the blocks you are currently using). 

Edited September 2, 2021 by VTHokiEE

[Gregory]

5 hours ago, Laggard said:

2. Anyone willing to accept Venmo to send me a few blocks?  I can’t spend 10 bucks just to get blocks to replace the broken ones. 
 

Thanks

What is a few? What size? ( 3mm? )

 

Are you concerned about the blocks matching the ones you already have?

 

 

I have a stash of typical kit blocks and I could possibly send you a few..

 

As far as cost, my time and trouble would be worth more than 10 bucks, but I have been known to help fellow modelers without expecting 

any more compensation than the knowledge they will pass it on should the opportunity present itself.

 

With regard to Allan's suggestion, here is a simplified process for making your own blocks..

 

 

 

The quality would be superior to most kit provided blocks, and you would have a process to take forward in your modeling endeavors.

[Laggard]

6 hours ago, VTHokiEE said:

Different modeling blocks are made from different types of wood. The wood that your blocks are made from made be softer and can’t handle the same pressure other woods can.
 

Let me check if I have any extra 3mm blocks laying around - how many do you need to replace? (Side note and this may not bother you but they probably will look different from the blocks you are currently using). 

Just need 6 or so 3 mm blocks.  I can get them online for $2 for 10.  Minimum order though is 5 plus 5 shipping which seems like a lot for six blocks.  Color does not matter at all.  Thank you. 

[Gregory]

I'll PM you..

[wefalck]

When it is about holding blocks during 'stropping' one can think about alternatives to hemostats. One can fiddle a wire loop through one of the bores and fix this wire somewhere on the workbench - this is akin to the full-size practice. For larger blocks, where the bores are big enough, one can also drive a headless steel-pin into a piece of wood and hold this in a vice or similar - the block then is hold by this pin while working on it.

 

During manipulating blocks for shaping, people make themselves wooden clamps with a recess at the front to hold blanks. The principle for such clamps, albeit in metal, you can see at nos. 6 and 7 in the image below:

 

 

It may also be possible to modify a wooden clothes peg for the purpose.

[Roger Pellett]

I recently found and bought a pin vice like #6 and 7 that  you show above.  Are the brass inserts intended to be removable so that they can be replaced with custom shaped ones?  Having a unique ability to damage finely made tools, I don’t want to muck this one up.

 

Roger

 

 

[wefalck]

Yep, you can knock out the brass inserts. They are a tight press fit with a dove-tail. I made some hardwood and Novotex inserts that simply could be hammered down (with caution), while in the case of brass or aluminium, you would need to file-/mill-on the rough dove-tail shape. If you don't get it completely right, you can probably also use Loctite or CA to fasten them, but I prefer it the old way.

 

I made some flat jaws to work as a miniature hand-vice, but also milled recesses into the brass inserts to hold my bakelite micro-blocks while shaping and stropping them.