Small Carving Work Holder

By Steve Kulp

In response to a ques­tion on a Face­book group from Richard Sanchez about work hold­ers for small­er carv­ings.  Steve Kulp shared his design for a small work hold­er uti­liz­ing balus­ter screws and scrap wood.  This is a good method to hold small­er work and pre­vent injury!  Fol­low­ing is an expand­ed and more detailed ver­sion of his comments:

Gen­er­al Dimen­sions and Hardware

Gen­er­al Dimen­sions and Hard­ware. Note: don’t drill the 3/4 in. hole com­plete­ly through the hold­er block, or flat­ten the hole sides. You’ll see why later.

How to locate 1/4 in hole in the end

End view show­ing how to locate 1/4 in hole. Note: after drilling 1/4 in. hole re-drill slight­ly larg­er for screw thread clear­ance , also make sure the hole is at least 3 1/2 in. deep for balus­ter screw clearance .

Drill pilot hole in work piece

Drill pilot hole in bot­tom of work piece about 1 in. deep, first mak­ing sure that it will not inter­fere with the carv­ing. After drilling the pilot hole run the Balus­ter screw into the carv­ing , either by using dou­ble nuts on the thread­ed end , or pli­ers grip­ping in or about the mid­dle of the Balus­ter screw .

Mount­ing work­piece on holder

Now we find out why we did­n’t drill the 3/4in. hole through. ! drop a 1/4 in. nut into the 3/4 in hole and jig­gle it around until it lays flat on the bot­tom side of the 3/4 in. hole , lined up with the end drilled 1/4 in hole.  Push the Balus­ter screw into the end hole till it butts against the nut.  Start the nut onto the Balus­ter screw by turn­ing the carv­ing until the nut is start­ed . After the nut is start­ed you should be able to turn the hold­er until the whole assem­bly tight­ens . And this is why we did­n’t flat­ten the edges of the 3/4 hole , the round­ed edges will hold the nut while you tight­en it .

Mount­ed ver­ti­cal­ly in a bench vice

The assem­bly tight­ened and mount­ed ver­ti­cal­ly in a bench vice .

Using the side hole

Using the oth­er hole you can mount your carv­ing with the hold­er hor­i­zon­tal in a bench vice .

Hor­i­zon­tal clamped to a bench or table

Ver­ti­cal hold­er clamped to a bench or table

You may vis­it Steve Kulp’s Face­book page to see more of his work by click­ing HERE