Speaker A
Welcome back. It's time for Tool Room Takeover 2026, where a number of extremely talented YouTube engineers and machinists have got together to make gifts for one another.
Alec Steele forges a custom filing vise as a gift for Yuri Tuchman in Tool Room Takeover 2026, blending engineering and blacksmithing skills.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- Custom tools can solve specific workshop challenges effectively.
- Combining forging and machining allows for versatile and durable tool creation.
- Designing with user needs in mind improves tool functionality, such as angled jaws for filing.
- Collaboration and inspiration from the maker community drive innovation.
- Attention to detail and iterative forging lead to high-quality finished products.
What the video covers
- Alec Steele participates in Tool Room Takeover 2026, creating a gift for fellow machinist Yuri Tuchman.
- The project addresses the challenge of filing chamfers on workpieces held in a traditional vise.
- Alec designs a hybrid filing vise with narrow jaws angled at 45° to improve clearance during filing.
- The vise features forged front and rear jaws and a pivoting moving jaw to hold various material sizes.
- The entire project involves extensive forging, cutting, and shaping of steel components.
- Alec shares insights into the forging process, including heating, hammering, and bending steel.
- The video includes lighthearted moments and workshop banter, showcasing Alec's personality.
- There is a brief personal story about rock climbing and a lost bottle of Element electrolyte drink.
- Alec references inspiration from Mark Asbury and Black Bear Forge’s filing vise designs.
- The project highlights the fusion of traditional blacksmithing with modern machining techniques.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Tool Room Takeover 2026
- 01:04Gift Project for Yuri Tuchman
- 02:21Problem with Filing Chamfers in a Vise
- 03:29Designing the Hybrid Filing Vise
- 04:57Forging the Fixed Jaw
- 06:16Shaping and Bending the Jaw
- 08:30Forging Challenges and Adjustments
- 11:57Personal Story and Product Placement
- 29:10Final Forging and Assembly
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
they're thinking. But here we are, honored to have been included. Last year I made a knob for a mini for a car. I made that for NBR Works.
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And somehow they ended up inviting a blacksmith for the second time. So, I don't know what they're thinking, but here we are, honored to have been included.
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He's a phenomenal engineer and machinist. In his workshop he gets up to all sorts of shenanigans. And the gift that I've decided to make is to solve this problem. If one has a vise, which Yuri does, and if he was to put a piece
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Last year I made a knob for a mini for a car. I made that for NBR Works.
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No, maybe I could put a 20° chamfer on it. 45° no way. I hit the vise first. I wrap my knuckles on the meatball. As much as we love a big vise, sometimes we need a little itty-bitty one that's got
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And this year I'm tasked with making a gift for the one and only Yuri Tuchman.
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then you have these narrow little jaws up at a 45° angle that allow you to get much more clearance on the part that you're filing. See, look at all that access. It'll work like this. Squeeze.
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He's a phenomenal engineer and machinist. In his workshop, he gets up to all sorts of shenanigans.
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[music] Okay, that's some square bar. First step is working on the fixed jaw. I got to figure out how much material is going to be needed to make that. I think 40 mm is going to be safe. Find 40 mm. Give it a
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And the gift that I've decided to make is to solve this problem. If one has a vise, which Yuri does, and if he was to put a piece of steel in it, which he might be inclined to do.
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That needed to be 20 mm at finish. Oh, that's 18. Right, cut it off, start again.
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And if he was wanting to put a 45° chamfer on it, and he tried to file it, oh, you can't actually hit the material.
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falling down on both sides. Now, the design that I came up with is a hybrid that I created from seeing Mark Asbury's fantastic filing vise video and a video that Black Bear Forge made discussing the Cloverdale Forge laser cut filing
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No, maybe I could put a 20° chamfer on it. 45° no way. I hit the vise first. I wrap my knuckles on the meatball.
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be doing a little bit of forging in THE VISE. OH, I missed a step. Well, while it's hot, I'll do something.
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As much as we love a big vise, sometimes we need a little itty-bitty one that's got a little bend on it.
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Yeah, well, you know what they say, fourth time's the charm. This will be third time.
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And that's where the filing vise comes in. It's a vise in a vise. I've come up with a design that I like.
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[music] I'm going to leave that with a little bit more forging to go. Now I'm going to make the bend of this jaw. I want it at about a 45° angle. This might be a good induction forge candidate right at the
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The idea is that between here and here, you clamp it in a vise, and then you have these narrow little jaws up at a 45° angle that allow you to get much more clearance on the part that you're filing.
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Saying that it wasn't close enough. Ah, sick burn, Jamie. Okay, next heat. We're going to heat it up, then I'm going to start hammering this way so that we can take some of this material and upset it into that
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See, look at all that access. It'll work like this. Squeeze.
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[music] Always make sure your tools are nicely secured to the concrete so you don't chase them AROUND THE WORKSHOP.
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Since at heart I'm a blacksmith, we're obviously going to forge our piece for this Tool Room Takeover 2026. So, let's cut off some steel.
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shrink this down that way a little bit, gives us a little bit more material to fill, cleans things up nicely. VERY NICE. NOW, I do also need to come back here and clean this up as I said I would
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I got some 1040 earmarked for it. This is going to be a fun forging project.
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Looks like you're making a wolf's head sword again. I think you're trying to insult my wolf's head sword by saying that that looks like a wolf's head sword.
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[music] Okay, that's some square bar. First step is working on the fixed jaw. I got to figure out how much material is going to be needed to make that.
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Wait, you telling me you can't draw a dog from memory? Oh, Jamie. Can you draw a dog from memory?
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I think 40 mm is going to be safe. Find 40 mm. Give it a little love tap.
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Hard, isn't it? If I had a hat, I would eat it. [music] That's how we're looking.
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Yeah, now draw it out a little bit. Have I already taken it too far? Why didn't I not just take a measurement?
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Drop forged. Yep. You know what that means, Jamie? If you drop it, you've got to drink.
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That needed to be 20 mm at finish. Oh, that's 18. Right, cut it off, start again.
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this actually represents the first time that I've climbed rock this entire year. It was a 4:30 a.m.
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So, this here is the beginning of this area there. So, you see it still needs a bend, but it also needs this little ledge.
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tower. The sun starts beating as we start climbing. And up and up and up I struggle following Maciek. And so there's no time for rest. I left my backpack with my Element at the base of the route. And as I struggled up this
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This is so that when it sits in the vise, the vise jaws stop it from falling down on both sides.
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bottom of the climb, what do I find? There was my backpack at the bottom of the route, open, and with my Nalgene lid off. Drags of Element all that was left.
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Now, the design that I came up with is a hybrid that I created from seeing Mark Asbury's fantastic filing vise video and a video that Black Bear Forge made discussing the Cloverdale Forge laser cut filing vise.
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is delicious and clearly Element has just won themselves another customer. Perhaps a customer with dubious ethics, but I'm sure that whoever took my Element that day is now hooked.
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And it's a hybrid 'cause it has the forged rear jaw, forged front jaw, but we can have a pivoting moving jaw as well so they can hold different sizes of material.
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could then subsequently enjoy a delightful can of their sparkling electrolyte drink to celebrate. If you'd like to try Element without taking it from somebody's backpack, please go to drinklmnt.com/forge.
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So, our next step is going to be doing a little bit of forging in THE VISE. OH, I missed a step. Well, while it's hot, I'll do something.
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Go make another tool. This time, a small chisel. [music] Now we find out this is mild steel or not. Let's hope. Oh, bugger, that feels soft.
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We've got to go see a butcher first. That is a butcher. I think I did it again. I made it too thin.
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One chisel. We all know growing up not to run with scissors, but nobody said anything about not running with red hot chisels.
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Far too enthusiastic with the power hammer. I think I'm going to have to cut another bit of material.
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negative space left out by the removal of the center piece is going to be the mating component of the other half of the filing vice.
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Yeah, well, you know what they say, fourth time's the charm. This will be third time.
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I'm very happy with how that looks. It's been a lot of gentle fiddling, but I think that the uh the cleanliness of that forging is something that I can be rather proud of. Things look quite square.
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Yeah, but there's going to be a fourth. Oh, thanks. We've got our finger. We've got our knuckle isolated. Now to the vise.
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That is something that makes the little boy in me proud. It's now on to either the moving side or the pivoting jaw. And I'm leaning towards actually doing the pivoting jaw, cuz that's the bit that's quite scary to
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[music] I'm going to leave that with a little bit more forging to go. Now I'm going to make the bend of this jaw.
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Again, part of what excites me about this project is it being a forging project. As best as possible, I'd like to forge all the components cuz that's a fun challenge for me. So, I have to imagine this. Something that's gone into
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I want it at about a 45° angle. This might be a good induction forge candidate right at the moment actually.
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square. Yeah, went wider, and then turn it sideways, perhaps. Oh, I think there's hope, guys. When you drift the hole, you can put a hole through a block of steel like that. Exactly. So, I can then punch one side, flip it over, punch
Speaker A
Never believe it like so. It's magic. You want to get copyright strike?
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That does not look like enough material. [music] I hit it a little bit harder than I planned to hit it. So, what was looking great is now looking not so great. The sides are a little bit uneven. I think I
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Saying that it wasn't close enough. Ah, sick burn, Jamie. Okay, next heat.
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[music] That's how we're looking, which is about exactly how I wanted it to look. All that's left to do is put the holes in there for it to pivot. Now, why not try and punch the holes? How sick would that
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We're going to heat it up, then I'm going to start hammering this way so that we can take some of this material and upset it into that corner where it's got a radius.
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Pow. Here we go. Oh, that works a treat. Ha. How good. Cool. Let's take another heat. I can't believe how well that's working, mate.
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I want it to have a nice 45° angle to it.
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Uh, it didn't quite tell me, did it? Yeah, we're not far enough through these, I think.
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[music] Always make sure your tools are nicely secured to the concrete so you don't chase them AROUND THE WORKSHOP.
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Sick. Let's drift it. [music] Hopefully. No okay. Why don't you line up, you silly billy?
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OW! WHY DIDN'T I DO THIS EARLIER? That's going to be much nicer.
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Oh, don't bend. Phew. It's not coming easy, this little piece. Would have been a lot quicker at the mill.
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[music] We have filled it quite nicely. Have a look at that from the side profile. Look at our little corner.
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[music] We got it up. Nothing particularly comes quick. It's basically cold [music] by the time I start. Hence why the drifts keep bending.
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Almost perfect on that side, but I'm hoping that if I shrink this down that way a little bit, gives us a little bit more material to fill, cleans things up nicely.
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think it's going to be to actually make. I should have taken a measurement. Clearly I didn't learn my lesson from yesterday. Oh, we'll just get away with it.
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VERY NICE. NOW, I do also need to come back here and clean this up as I said I would do earlier.
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was an important part of the aesthetics. And so, I need something like that that then necks it down like so. Guess what that means we've got to do, Jamie? We need another tool.
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I've got to figure out how to get in there.
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There we go. Nice. [music] Guys, the worst bending a blacksmith has ever done. Thank goodness it was a videographer.
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[music] [music] I love it. Now, I the jaw into its final taper.
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making that boss is with an eyelet forged top and bottom to forge that impression, and that is exactly what we're going to try and do here.
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I can forge it down a little bit now, and then just going to clean it up at the end.
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Sick. Get a good bit of scale there, Jamie. I did, yeah. How did you know that?
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Looks like you're making a wolf's head sword again.
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Yep. Got to make another tool. How many tools can Alec make in one video?
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I think you're trying to insult my wolf's head sword by saying that that looks like a wolf's head sword.
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Great. Now that's narrower than it needs to be by a long shot. So, you're upset cuz you're now going to have to upset it.
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Looks like a dog from the spring video. Somebody asked you to draw something from memory that I Draw a dog from memory.
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There's tons of material there. Go on, we'll try upsetting it. [bell] In case you couldn't tell, I'll start it again.
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And then it looks like that.
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It's a little harder to thicken it up. Hang on a minute. You make it a aardvark head hole.
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Wait, you telling me you can't draw a dog from memory?
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Be a piece of cake with a grinder. This is the technique, boys. Let's figure out where this hole goes.
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Oh, Jamie. Can you draw a dog from memory?
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What is wrong with you, Alec? Do you see the problem? It doesn't even look like the drawing, either.
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THAT'S A HOLE.
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there's going to be a fourth. [music] Well, that's the best so far. So, I'm now going to work on the other half.
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[laughter] THAT DOES NOT LOOK LIKE THAT LOOKS LIKE a horse, not a dog.
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Cut that out with a chisel. Still no filing yet. There's no footage of that though, so That's cuz you were pooing.
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Hard, isn't it? If I had a hat, I would eat it.
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I smell something in there. That might have been me. It is looking more and more like the thing, apart from the fact I've lost my jaw.
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[music] That's how we're looking.
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I've literally completely lost it. What, the plot? Yeah. Oh, here it is. All right, this is the closest we've been to assembly.
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[music] Okay, flows quite nicely from this upper portion to this lower parallel portion. Whoop.
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would be to use an angle grinder and just follow the little chisel lines that are in there. Zoop zoop, that'd take me 3 seconds. The next simple option would be to do as Mark Asbury did. Again, and all almost credit to him. If you want to
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Drop forged. Yep. You know what that means, Jamie? If you drop it, you've got to drink.
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What he did is he put a hacksaw down those to keep it pretty traditional, and then clean up with a file. I've been trying to make this a no filing filing vice. I don't know if using a hacksaw
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Now, last month I made a quick dash to the mountains. At 3,838 m above sea level, in the Mont Blanc Massif, is a granite tower with incredible history
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But how else am I going to do it? have made it a different way. Why don't you chisel it out before you rolled it?
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[music] and reputation. And I've been working so much over the last year that this actually represents the first time that I've climbed rock this entire year.
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If you hacksaw it, you know that you're going to feel like you cheated yourself a bit.
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It was a 4:30 a.m. alarm, a 6:30 lift, and then the race was on across the glacier in the direction of this enormous granite tower.
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What, you're a blacksmith or something? It's a half-decent idea, Jamie. And that was going to be the next thing I said.
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350 m of hard climbing ahead of us. And the climbers, they converged like cockroaches to the base of this tower.
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[screaming] WHY DON'T YOU JUST PUT IT IN THE VISE? WELL, cuz if you hammer on something in a vise, it slips. Oh, would you look at that?
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The sun starts beating as we start climbing. And up and up and up I struggle following Maciek.
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[screaming] SEE IF THAT LINES UP [music] ANY BETTER. NO, THAT DOES NOT LINE UP ANY BETTER.
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And so there's no time for rest. I left my backpack with my Element at the base of the route.
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Almost. Just have to do the same thing on this component. So, if you start out like what his favorite hammer was to show off his butt, and this is what he said.
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And as I struggled up this mountain, all I was thinking about was that sweet, glorious hydration waiting for me at the bottom.
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Well, it's a sledgehammer. It's the same one that earned me 120 lb when I smacked myself in the nuts when I was 13. Uh, there is one of the first It's next door is the third hammer I ever made. It has
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We reached the top and it is glorious. I'm exhausted, but there's still 10 repels to go.
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I've been using it all the time. There we go. Is that your favorite hammer?
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And when I finally reach my backpack at the bottom of the climb, what do I find?
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Pretty rough, but that was the beginning of a pretty cool journey. I think we should be able to make that work.
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There was my backpack at the bottom of the route, open, and with my Nalgene lid off. Drags of Element all that was left.
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I think that this section here isn't long enough. The location of this shoulder relative to that shoulder needs to be moved up, and I think in this position where it's closed, our pivoting jaw should be touching our fixed jaw. So, I'm going to
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Some cheeky climber decided to help themselves to my bottle of Element, leaving me drops only.
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All right, that's a lot [music] more like it. Okay, I now have to stretch this nose out a little bit more to line up with the edge there.
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They just couldn't help themselves. It just tastes too good. It's why I'm so thrilled that they are a sponsor of ours, because it is delicious and clearly Element has just won themselves another customer.
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Come on. [music] Why do you not fit? No, get back there. No, get back there.
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Perhaps a customer with dubious ethics, but I'm sure that whoever took my Element that day is now hooked.
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Uh I need to make a new rivet anyway. Don't grip too hard. No, let it float.
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Thankfully, hidden at the very bottom of my pack, I'd filled up this fellow with their lemonade iced tea.
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[music] No, you. NO. NO! [screaming] IT HAPPENED AGAIN. WHY CAN the drift go through, but the rivet can't?
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Thanks to the electrolyte goodness and the energy boost of 50 mg of caffeine, I was able to make it back off the glacier where I could then subsequently enjoy a delightful can of their sparkling electrolyte drink to celebrate.
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[music] See if we can work it loose. Got a little bit of a bend here at the moving jaw. Touching there, not touching here.
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If you'd like to try Element without taking it from somebody's backpack, please go to drinklmnt.com/forge.
Speaker A
[music] Now, before we test this, it's time for us Oh, Jamie, you've got one.
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There, if you're a new or an existing customer when you use code forge check out, you'll get eight sticks free in a sample pack.
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Another phenomenal machinist on YouTube. Oh, I'm excited. Blue Royal Ink. Okay, letter first. Dear Alec, you've been there pretty much since the start of my journey in metal working 14 years ago. PS, sorry for Jamie's gift.
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Just be careful, 'cause if you leave it sitting around, somebody might take it.
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Wow. This is beautiful. What a delightful gift. You love a fountain pen as well.
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Go make another tool. This time, a small chisel.
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Then probably turn it over so then the air bubbles come up, push back up, and it's only air. Screw the plunger back.
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[music] Now we find out this is mild steel or not. Let's hope.
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This is a real work of art. I'm so grateful. Thank you so much. [music] Your turn.
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Oh, bugger, that feels soft.
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[music] bone-chilling outcry of tortured soul from the depths of hell. Wow, this is going to be like one of those Aztec uh death whistles, isn't it? Let's listen to it.
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That feels like mild steel. That's definitely much harder. That's what we were looking for.
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IT REALLY DOES SOUND LIKE DEATH. MAN, THIS IS GOING to be hard to get you with though, isn't it? This is going to require a bit of there's only one airline that fits it.
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One chisel. We all know growing up not to run with scissors, but nobody said anything about not running with red hot chisels.
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that it is a better mating surface to clamp against. And so, despite trying for all this time to make a no-filing and no-grinding filing vice, a little bit was required in the end. Even though I had to put a
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RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS I GUESS WE'RE THROUGH. SO, THIS WOO, HELLO. Is hopefully going to become our hinge component.
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Let's see how it goes. We've got a piece of 8-in sheet in the edge of the vise.
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Hmm, that's one of the downsides of a pivoting jaw. See, the benefit and the reason for the pivoting jaw is to be able to accept different stock sizes, but if you're trying to grip nip on something just right here, well,
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that's not not quite as good cuz you then have this angle, but then again you'd have an angle if you were on different sizes anyway, so as long as it grips up at or past the pivot, it grips
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parallel. Well, that feels quite dignified if I might say so myself. Woah! Scoff at doing chamfers. Now I understand why these things exist.
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God After action report time, what are the things that I would like to improve?
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Well, given this is all the forging with no filing in the fit-up, of course, my hinge has quite a lot of slop. That's fine. The biggest upset to me is on our rear jaw, I was able to maintain a
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little flat spot. So, the first 15 mm here is flat before it starts tapering.
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It's a feature I included in the drawing so that as the vise closes on it, it always has something square to grip on.
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But, when I had to forge out this leg to increase its length, I lost that little flat spot, which means that as you grip on something, there's a wider angle there in the vise, and so it doesn't quite have as much contact. And if it
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wasn't for the fact that this needs to go in a box today, it would be awesome if I had a little spring in there so that it would auto open. As it stands, not the hardest thing in the world to
Speaker A
hold it with one hand as you close it. That was a tremendously interesting forging project, and I hope that you go check out not only Project Havoc's video of making the beautiful fountain pen he made me, but also Yuri Tuchman's video
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and the rest of the crew that have been involved in the tool room takeover 2026.
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What a delight to be able to send these gifts all around. And what a delight to be able to set myself a challenge of doing something like this under mostly just the hammer. Don't forget to go to drinklmnt.com/forge
Speaker A
for some delightful electrolytes. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
Topics:Alec Steelefiling viseblacksmithingforgingTool Room Takeover 2026machiningmetalworkingcustom toolsworkshop projectsengineering
