Chalk line – leaky
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- This topic has 5 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 4 months, 1 week ago by Ed.
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I have an old Craftsman chalk line like the one shown in the link, but it lets out more chalk than I want and is somewhat leaky. There are pads inside the clam shell that rub the line at the outlet and they appear to be old and worn. Does anyone know if they can be replaced and what to use? I assume I’ll need to improvise something. What material would be appropriate and how do you get the right thickness and tightness?
10 November 2023 at 12:43 am #818628I have a couple of those chalk boxes and the item that stops the “leaking” is some felt pads that the line passes through. It’s possible to slow the leaking considerably by just turning the pads upside down so the line has a new surface to run over and by shimming them closer to each other.
For your issue break the chalk box in with the ultra thin line( I assume by Tajima). You can make the pads work better if you shim them with something like cereal box cardboard until you get the effect you want.. if the felt is too worn you will have to make replacement pads from felt glued up to thickness with rubber cement. Cut it to shape with a razor blade or really sharp chisel. You use to be able to buy new pads, but I think those days are long gone. Really clean and fine work generally requires a person at each end of the line and a small flick of the line away from the work to get loose chalk off the line.You might want to consider buying a Tajima chalk box that will probably work better and has the advantage that they are geared to allow faster reeling if you are doing a lot of layout work. They are available with different thickness lines preloaded. You will never fully eliminate the excess powder.
For really fine lines for furniture work the Japanese use lines in boxes that are loaded with ink, not chalk. Their disadvantage is inky hands. Tajima also makes those boxes and ink in different colors. Furniture layout in Japan is done with those boxes.
- This reply was modified 5 months, 3 weeks ago by Larry Geib.
Thanks, Larry. I did end up buying one of the Tajima boxes. Once I started cleaning the old Craftsman, I realized that I’d never be able to get all of the old red chalk out. Since the red chalk might be too permanent for marking furniture parts, I decided better safe than sorry and ordered one of the Tajima’s plus some purple “dust off” calk. I’ll see if I can adjust the pads in the Craftsman (for other work), but they seemed brittle.
Are you sure that Japanese use sumitsubo for furniture? I thought it was for carpentry, which still requires exquisite joinery, but for which permanent ink lines won’t matter. There is also a stylus that is used with the ink pot. That might be less likely to cause trouble.
17 December 2023 at 1:28 am #822258Sumitsubo are used in all kinds of trades, including house and temple carpentry, furniture, steel, and stonework. Keep in mind that lots of furniture work starts out with boards ‘ in the rough’ with lots of time spent at the planing beam to prepare the wood.. final planing . Removes the marks.
And while I’m sure that a practiced artisan can spend a day doing layout with the ink pot without soiling his hands, that wasn’t my experience with the little time I trialed one.
@LORENZOJOSE I was laying out flutes on a turned column for a longcase / grandfather clock. I thought this would be ideal, but in the end found it wasn’t suitable for me. Instead, I ended up dividing the circumference up at the top of the column, again at the bottom, and then using a manilla folder to connect the dots. The card stock flexed to follow the curves of the column. I put a Bessey clamp (F clamp) in the vise and then held the column with that. By fiddling around with the height of the clamp, I could have the the card stock be supported by the bench so that I could focus on holding the working edge on the layout marks. Because of this, it turned out best to leave the folder wide rather than cutting a ruler-like strip.
There were 8 flutes. The standard trick of dividing by walking dividers around I found unsuitable. It is too easy to mess up, too fussy, and can leave prick marks from the trials. Also, we care more about it looking right than being right. So, I focused on getting 4 divisions first, aligned with the 4 faces of the column base and top, then dividing those in half and adjusting by eye to look right.
It’s really easy to end up with the flutes having a bit of barber pole swirl to them! I didn’t avoid this completely and I think it came in during the carving, not the layout.
Anyway, the ultrafine chalk line is sitting in the toolbox. It will be useful for other things.
- This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by Ed.
- This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by Ed.
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