A couple evenings back, I was watching some YouTube in the evening and saw a one-day build by Adam Savage of a stitching pony. I’ve been wanting a stitching pony for a while for when I make a sheath for a knife I’ve made, but watching his build, he was talking about using it for holding metal for filing and a bunch of other uses. That gave me the push I needed in order to build one for myself.
I started by cutting the arms from a piece of pine I had on hand. Rather than using plywood so the arms would be sprung, I decided I was going to use a couple pieces of hinge. It won’t spring open like his does, but I think it’ll still work pretty well, and if I make one of something nicer than pine, I can get fancier.
With the arms built, I found an inch square piece of ash, and drilled a half dozen holes in it. Rather than having a spinning piece of wood to adjust the range of the clamp, I figured multiple holes which I can slot a bolt or a dowel through would be easier. Since drilling round holes is easier than chopping square mortises, I made the hole in the arm with that adjuster a ⅞ inch round hole, and turned the end of the lever arm round on the lathe.
I left the other end square, and cut a slot into it to hold the cam on the lever arm. The cam was a circle drawn using a pop can, then made bigger on one side and smaller on the other. And then once I assembled everything the first time and realized that the handle restricted me to only a half-turn, I adjusted the curve so it would have the full ¾ inch of travel I needed based on the holes I had drilled. To match the square end, I had to chop a square 1 inch mortise in the other arm.
With it working, I added a cleat to the foot of the pony so I can hang it on the cleats on my wall. It’ll get a coat of oil after I contact-cement some leather pads to the jaws tomorrow. With the holes in the lever arm spaced ¾ inch apart, and with six of them, I can clamp anything from paper thin up to 4½ inches thick, though thicker things will have the jaws at an inconvenient angle, so I probably won’t ever use it for anything thicker than an inch or so. But I could make hinged jaws too…
Ryan, it’s designed for holding two bits of leather together so you can stitch them. As when stitching the seam on a leather sheath for a knife. But holding anything small-ish will work. Adam Savage was particularly excited about filing small pieces of metal. Me, I expect I’ll use it for leatherwork, but also for holding a knife blade while rough-shaping it with a file.
Looks like it'll do the intended job well, nice build. I like the hinges modification you used, these provide the wider range of movement as you described, up to 4 1/2".
Thanks, Tom! I also figured the hinges would be more resistant to breaking in the dry here. And they’ll make it easier to replace an arm should something break or get dinged.
Thanks, James! Yeah, I have leather needles (saddle stitching uses a pair of needles), three colors of thread, and four different stitching chisels. I’m pretty well set up for leather-working. I also got a couple shoulders of different weights of leather from tandy leather back when they had a pretty good sale.
