Fray brace Rebuild

[Cody Cantrell]

Warning if you are a collector this is not the post for you

I know alot of people prefer to buy new tools and build furniture than to work on tools. I am odd in the respect that I really enjoy working on old tools. I guess it allows me to do woodwork and metal work. This Fray was bought on that online auction site for around $20 and was in pretty bad shape as you can see from the before pictures. I took of the old pad and the after market wrist for the guy that likes a handle with some more girth. It was also missing the factory thumbscrew. After I had the brace stripped down to its birthday suit I used a brass wire wheel to remove the 100 or so years of rust. Squeezing the jaws shut showed that they would not close properly I reworked the chuck so that the jaws would close properly. Somehow the wrist area was bent which prevented the wrist pieces from operating properly so I had to straighten it as well. A new pad and wrist was turned from Honduras Rosewood and I recast the pewter rings. For the thumbscrew I had to rebore and tap the original to 7/16-14. The original was already 14 tpi but was somewhere between 3/8" and 7/16". I ordered iron thumbscrews from McMasters Carr and drilled and tapped them for 7/16-14. I threaded in a new threaded portion and pinned the thumbscrew to the shaft like the original. I tried forging my own thumscrews but realized that I needed to improve my blacksmithing skills. It now looks like a Holt pattern thumbscrew than a Fray but it works great. Sorry for the lousy pictures they are from my cell phone. Thanks for looking.

Cody
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[Derek Cohen]

Hi Cody

That is really nice work.

I enjoy using these braces. My frustration is that the two I have both have some slop around the male-to-female connection. This makes the pad rock ....



Any suggestions for obtaining a smooth, taut spin? I assume that the bearing is worn.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Cody Cantrell]

Derek,
There is no bearing in them. If you could remove the pad you might be able to pein the end of the frame and tighten it up a little. That generally makes it tighter up and down, other than that I dont have a great solution.

Cody

[Tony Zaffuto]

Real nice job Cody!

I have an accumulation of Fray Spoffords, with one of each size and an appropriately sized center bit always chucked. In my extra Frays, I have a countersink mounted and a straight screwdriver bit. I have never had to do a restore, but one was missing the pewter rings. On that one, I simply took pieces of lead solder, flattened it out to fit in the ring slot, scarfed the overlap and heated with an electric woodburning pencil to make it a solid one piece ring.

[Jim Stewart]

Why remove the pad? I think you could pein it in place while rotating the pad.

Cody, that is amazing work. I have no idea how you recast the rings so nicely.

Jim

[Jim Koepke]

Nice job on the brace Cody.

I am odd in the respect that I really enjoy working on old tools. I guess it allows me to do woodwork and metal work.

My sentiments exactly.

Being creative is fun in many mediums. Heck when I was a kid I played with mud. Now it is called making pottery when it comes out of the kiln.

jtk

[Eric Brown]

Cody it looks really nice. Like Jim Stewart, I would like to know how you recast the rings. The basic concept as I understand it is to wrap the handles with cardboard and pour the pewter. Then trim the excess. Do you pour from the top or what? Could you illustrate the basic process? This would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Eric

[Cody Cantrell]

Thanks for the comments
I am not sure if this reference is allowed, if not my apologies please remove. There was an article on WK finetools about recasting the rings, that really helped me, I tried leather before with mediocre results.

Cody

[Jack Curtis]

Great job, Cody. I've often wondered why no one is making new Fray/Spofford braces, given their new found popularity.

[Noah Wagener]

those are pretty dramatic before and after pictures. THey do not look like the same tool.

Do chucks like that work with modern bits? i have a brace with a chuck that looks like two small pieces of angle iron that are tightened as a sleeve is threaded down on them. It is common i think but i do not know the name for it. Anyways, it only seems to work well with tapered, square tangs.

[Shawn Pixley]

To address the play there you could either turn some oilite bushings on a lathe or you might try a brass shim peened into the socket. Just an idea.

[Mike Henderson]

That is an amazing transformation. I'm sure I would have passed on buying it the way the original looked. Thanks for bringing it back to use - and looks.

Mike

[Josh Salomon]

Cody, I realize this is an old thread, but wanted to ask about something that hasn't been covered in the discussion. You mention that you reworked the chuck and also straightened the shaft under the handle. Can you please say more about how you did this? Did you heat up the steel to make the bends? I am particularly interested to know if there is an easy way to fix a sprung jaw, which is quite common on these. Would you heat up the split jaw and drive a wedge in to restore the spring? Use pliers to bend each side of the split jaw out? Many thanks for your advice. - Josh

[Karl Fife]

Again not to 'Necro-post', but I too am interested in how you straightened the shaft on that Spofford Fray. I would imagine the weakest part of the assembly is under the handle of the crank. The first picture makes it look really bent. The second looks straighter. The third looks perfect. I see these on ebay from time to time and some look a little bit bent--like the pad was pushed down from being dropped, or from working the bit too hard.

Maybe certain features are being exaggerated because of perspective. Tell us what you can. :-)

[Cody Cantrell]

Sorry for the delay on this.
Josh if you are refering to the jaws not being open enough I dont heat the terminal fork,jaws, but carefully push a hardwood wedge between the jaw halves until they are sprung open. If they ar sprung open too much which is more common, I put the wedge behind the thumb screw and give the jaws a squeeze in a smooth jawed vise.

Karl to straighten the frame I remove both halves of the wrist and use a dial caliper to measure the distance between the shoulders of the wrist area and use a straight edge to located the bent area. I then carefully applie heat to the affected area making small adjustment to the weist until it is straight again.
Hope this helps.