Caliper From Wire Nails

Need a tool...Make it!

I had a great little project for a client, to repair the timber base to a chair of theirs...

...one of the tapered chair legs had split leaving the chair unusable.

I found a piece of timber that was a close match and roughed out on the wood lathe.

Now to make it exactly the same size as the original...

...I needed a set of external calipers...

...and I don't own any!

Come with me as we make a super easy + quick external calipers from a couple of wire nails...

x2 Wire nails - I used 125mm long nails [steel not galvanised]

A small nut + bolt from my glass jar of old ones.

A few tools

Butane gas torch

Hammer

Anvil or heavy metal object

Drill + drill bits

Sander

Plumbers solder + flux

Vice [vise]

Metal bending tool - not essential though makes a lovely curved bend

Optional - for thumbturn

Brazing kit

Brazing flux + filler

Take the two wire nails and bend the pointy ends around...

...so the nail heads overlap and the sharp ends touch.

I used a little metal bender tool though could be easily achieved by hammering around a pipe or clamping in a vice and hammering around into shape

Flatten the nail heads so that they can be bolted together.

I find that heating them up with a blow torch helps by softening the metal...

...hammer the head...heat some more...and hammer again...

...until the heads are flat.

Find a suitable nut + bolt...

...and punch a central mark for the pivot hole on both flattened nail heads...

...drill out both nails + clean up with your sander

The bolt needs to be fixed to one of the nails.

I used plumbers solder to achieve this, plenty strong enough for what we need.

Apply plumbers flux to the nail head + bolt...

...cut a thin strip of plumbers solder and wrap around the nut...

...heat with a blow torch and push down firmly as the solder flows.

Leave to cool.

Probably not the most sensible to solder onto timber, it burns! It looks good in the video though could be a fire hazard, take care when using a flaming torch.

I wanted to make a little thumb turn nut for the caliper for ease of use...

...though I didn't have one...

...so why not make one!

I carefully cut out a section of a washer so it would fit snugly onto the nut

I am fortunate to have inherited a little brazing kit and used this as my first experience of brazing

Add a little brazing flux powder...

...light up the torch and braze either side of the washer with some bronze filler rod.

It worked well allowing the calipers to be tightened by hand.

Due to my inexperience of brazing one side came loose after some time and I ran out of oxygen when re-brazing, so for the time being I am using a standard nut and pliers to tighten, which also works well.

Bolt the calipers together...

...pop into a vice and with a hammer knock the pointy ends until they come together.

All done and ready to make sure the chair leg was finish to perfection.

I am entering this project into the Build a Tool Competition. If you have enjoyed this project, I would really appreciate your vote. Many thanks.

This project is part of my YouTube series where I try to make cool and interesting projects.

Please check out my channel if you want to see more of the projects, if not there will be more coming to Instructables soon.

Why not check out what I am up to with pricklysauce.com

And also catch me on Facebook + Twitter and now on Instagram!