Saw a few folks making pinch sticks on here, and Lee Valley just started selling their Bar Gauge Heads plus I’m making a screen for our fireplace, and needed to measure the width of the inside of it, so everything kind of came together to say, “Now’s the time!”
Ripped a piece of ¾” pine off the edge of a board which is destined to be a French cleat on the wall. Took about ⅜ or so, then planered it down to a quarter inch, and cut two pieces about 16” long off.
Opened the package from Lee Valley, and all of their little screws and studs and stuff scattered in he sawdust on the floor. Dammit. Sent Lee Valley an email grumbling about the packaging, including the pile of sweepings I dug through and found a few of the pieces in. I was lucky I had cleaned up the shop just a couple days ago, so it wasn’t a 5-gallon bucket worth of sweepings I had to dig through.
If you’re looking for replacement screws, #6x⅜ wood screws are just a hair too long, but filing off the sharp ends that poke through is pretty easy if you use brass screws. And then I grabbed a couple pieces of 3/16 x 3/8 inch brass rectangular tubing, cut them to ¾ inch long, filed off one side, and carved two ends of the pine to accept them. Glued them on with fish glue and then cleaned things up with the file, and ta-da!
I’ll remake these with some pretty hardwood at some point. Or I won’t, since they work just fine as-is, and took about 35 minutes to make from pine.
Edited to add: I’ve been tossing in a set of the bar gauge heads whenever I need a few extra bucks to reach free shipping with Lee Valley. This week I’m finishing multiple projects with Tried and True Varnish oil, which means mostly sitting around waiting for oil to cure, so I knocked out three more sets of different sizes and different woods. See the last photo.
Is the end blue? Just checking my eyes I think? If they slide easily they are perfect, leave the pine as is. If you get to using them you will want longer, and shorter ones too, make a future set Walnut.
Thanks, YRTi. I don’t need them often, but when I do…
Exactly, Mike. And when I'm in the middle of a project where I need them, I also have a bench full of crap and can’t be bothered to make them then. Glad I “stole” a few minutes to just get them done.
And I’ve made three more sets while waiting for oil to cure on other projects. One set (the ash ones in the middle top) got a piece of old bandsaw blade as a “wear strip” because I milled the wood a hair too thick.
