Holdfast (tool)

Okay kiddo, imagine you're building a sandcastle at the beach, but you don't want it to fall apart when the waves come crashing in. What do you do? Well, you might grab some wet sand and pack it really tightly into a ball, then stick it onto the castle to make sure it stays put. That's kind of what a holdfast is!

But instead of sand, a holdfast is a tool that attaches to a workbench to hold things in place while you're working on them. It looks kind of like a big metal claw with a long stick coming out of it. You stick the claw part into a hole in your workbench and then hit the stick with a mallet to make it tighten up and grip onto your workpiece, like a board or a piece of metal.

So let's say you're trying to saw a board in half with a handsaw. You don't want the board to move around or wiggle while you're sawing, or you might mess up your cut! That's where the holdfast comes in. You stick the board onto your workbench with the holdfast and then it stays put while you saw away.

Overall, a holdfast is a handy tool to have around if you do a lot of woodworking or metalworking. It helps you keep your workpieces steady and in place while you're working on them, so you can get the job done right!