Thread: My Moxon dovetail vise

Clamped at one end ..





... and clamped at the front ...



You can also see the rest clamped to the edge of the bench, in line with the vise.



Now place the Tail Board on top ..



I was again surprised at the stability of the Tail Board which was only held down by its own weight. However, I recommend that one add clamps at each end.



Now you can tap it into perfect alignment, ready for knifing the lines.

Another view ...



Now back to dovetailing ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

Very nice indeed.
Would be very handy to have one at the end of my bench, at present things get far too "wobbly" when trying to clamp larger boards.
2 questions:
1. Shall we be seening a WIP on the military chests?
2. How much use do you recon you will make of the thread cutter? I have been put off by the fear it may only get usd once every three months or worse still only once!

Chris

A very clever addition to the original with the ears so you can clamp it down.

Hmm - it seems these things must require a long gestation. I made the screws for a similar device more than 2 years ago, & haven't finished it, yet! I was waiting for a friend, who is a much better machinist than I, to make me a new 1.5" tap. The one I have is 6 tpi, which is too fine for this sort of application, IMO, so have ordered a 4 tpi one. My friend also needs a lot of lead-time...

I'm surprised at how well your screwbox worked on the Euc. blanks, Derek. I tried a few like Spotted Gum (in smaller sizes) & all I got was a very ugly crumbled scrap of thread. It seemed to be set up ok, as it produced a perfect thread on some apple I tried it on. Tassie Oak seems to thread well, though - Frank Weissner, whom you may have seen featured in a couple of AWR issues, likes it very much & has no trouble threading it with a screwbox, he tells me. However, I have this penchant for using iron-hard woods like Bull-oak & Belah, which I very much doubt would respond to a screwbox as well as they do to a spinning carbide bit..

It's just as well I didn't finish my vise, as your design is much better than what I was contemplating - so I shall happily plagarise your design! I do need one, so I must give my friend a few friendly prods to get that tap made.

Cheers,

Originally Posted by haggismuncher

.........2. How much use do you recon you will make of the thread cutter? I have been put off by the fear it may only get usd once every three months or worse still only once!

Chris - wood threading is a bit of an anachronism in this age of metal, but they do work very well, & the raw material is plentiful! There are lots of uses for wood threading equipment, & you will find fewer applications for the larger sizes, such as the 1.5", unless you offer to make screws & nuts for all your woodie friends. However, smaller sizes are good for handscrews (& remember you can't have too many clamps!) plus other things. For my purposes, the most useful size is 3/4", but 1" makes very robust clamps & bar clamps. You could use a 1" screw for a vise like Derek's. It would be perfectly functional, just a little slower to open & close (they are usually 6 tpi) than a coarser thread. But since you are only moving it over very short distances, I doubt that would matter at all.

Cheers,

G'day Derek,

I saw Chris's repost and was considering making one..........I think you have pushed me over the edge. I'm not sure it will of the same standard as yours.

Regards
Anthony

Originally Posted by IanW

Chris - wood threading is a bit of an anachronism in this age of metal, but they do work very well, & the raw material is plentiful! There are lots of uses for wood threading equipment, & you will find fewer applications for the larger sizes, such as the 1.5", unless you offer to make screws & nuts for all your woodie friends. However, smaller sizes are good for handscrews (& remember you can't have too many clamps!) plus other things. For my purposes, the most useful size is 3/4", but 1" makes very robust clamps & bar clamps. You could use a 1" screw for a vise like Derek's. It would be perfectly functional, just a little slower to open & close (they are usually 6 tpi) than a coarser thread. But since you are only moving it over very short distances, I doubt that would matter at all.

Cheers,

Thanks Ian,
I love the idea of wooden threads and Tas Oak shouldn't be too difficult to get hold of down here. I am just a bit wary of spending large amounts of money for something I rarely use (too many things lurking in the workshop cupboards already).
I had completely forgotten that the threads could be used for clamps. I have always fancied some wooden clamps and as you say there can never be enough of them.

Hi Derek,

Nice work, I like the changes you've made to the original, maybe we should call this version the Moxon/Cohen vise...

I'm slowly progressing on mine, that is to say, I've almost finished the tap... ahem..

But my son wants to put a twin screw tail vise on his workbench, which has magically appeared in my workshop.. so maybe that will come first.

Ian,
Not sure how Tasmanian Oak (aka Mountain ash, aka Messmate aka Victorian Ash) would go for threading, as it is a bit inclined to split too easily for my liking. Just as a point of interest, there is a lot of Mountain Ash around at present, lots of timber salvaged from the bushfires last year. The sawmill in Benalla has huge stockpiles.

We picked up some beautiful 300mm wide quartersawn 40mm Mountain Ash boards last weekend.

Regards
Ray

Originally Posted by RayG

.....Ian,
Not sure how Tasmanian Oak (aka Mountain ash, aka Messmate aka Victorian Ash) would go for threading, as it is a bit inclined to split too easily for my liking. Just as a point of interest, there is a lot of Mountain Ash around at present, lots of timber salvaged from the bushfires last year. The sawmill in Benalla has huge stockpiles.

Ray - I agree with you that Tas. Oak in any of its guises seems like a poor choice for threading, so have never bothered to make any serious attempts at it, myself. I can only quote Frank - in fact I saw him at that hand tool event organised by AWR a couple of months ago, and we had a discussion about its merits because he was working on a bench of Tas. Oak/Vic. Ash & pointed out the two wooden screws, which are the same material. The threads looked excellent, so I guess I have to believe him!

Originally Posted by RayG

........We picked up some beautiful 300mm wide quartersawn 40mm Mountain Ash boards last weekend.

Handy - are you making something particular, or just hoarding while the opportunity arises??? That was a good little mill there in Benalla - used to patronise it when I worked at the vet.lab, a few moons ago. I remember one of the foremen being quite bemused when I picked out a bunch of highly figured Red Gum and rejected the straight-grained stuff in the pile. It was nice, but it certainly tested my smoothing skills!!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

<snip

Handy - are you making something particular, or just hoarding while the opportunity arises??? That was a good little mill there in Benalla - used to patronise it when I worked at the vet.lab, a few moons ago. I remember one of the foremen being quite bemused when I picked out a bunch of highly figured Red Gum and rejected the straight-grained stuff in the pile. It was nice, but it certainly tested my smoothing skills!!

Cheers,

Hi Ian,

The Mountain Ash is for a largish shaker style blanket chest, the style with a full width drawer at the bottom.
A bit of custom mangled iron-work for the hardware, it'll be nice to fire up the forge, when we get a day that's not a total fire ban that is.

I'll post a few pictures. If you're interested.

Regards
Ray

PS Apologies for the temporary thread hijack.

Derek's vise finally prompted me to do something about a dovetail vise for myself. It's been on my 'to do' list for more years than I remember, but languished because the pair of 1.5" screws I turned up several years ago are still waiting for my mate to make a tap, so I can build the threadbox. He'll get around to it someday...

I'm trying to finish a chest of drawers at the moment, & the sides are driving me crazy with the constant humidity changes we are experiencing here this summer - bowing one way today, and the other way tomorrow - not conducive to accurate mark-outs! So, I had a couple of spare 1" screws made up for bar clamps, & since Derek's works fine with 1" screws, I decided to just go ahead & do it, using these spare screws. A quick scrabble in the recycled hardwood pile turned up a chunk of Kwila, 550x300x40mm. I have no idea where I acquired it, and it was covered in Estapol or the like, about 2mm thick all over! Anyway - it was deemed just right for the job, cut into 3 pieces, and each piece cleaned up & squared (man, that stuff does a number on sharp plane blades).

Because of my bench's deep front apron, clamping the vise to the bech top needs a different approach than the "modified Moxon" Derek made. I have two possible ways of securing it - one between the bench dogs (pic 1) and in case that isn't firm enough, I can use two 10mm bolts through two dog holes (pic 2). As it turns out, the second method may be superfluous, because the tail vise seems to hold it very firmly between the dogs. I also set it up with the back jaw flush with the apron, so when the board is clamped in, it is braced nicely, and sawing is now sooo much more comfortable than with a wide piece sticking out of the edge of the vise.

I decided while I was at it, to make an adjustable support to hold boards while transferring marks - much better than rootling about looking for enough bits of flat scrap to make a pile of the right height! (pic 3).

So at last, I have wider dovetail boards tamed (pic 4) - thankyou Derek!!

Have only done a quick test run with it so far, but it seems to be the bee's knees - why didn't I do this 20 years ago??

cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

it seems to be the bee's knees - why didn't I do this 20 years ago??

cheers,

Because 20 years ago you were still thinking about doing it.

Originally Posted by Waldo

Because 20 years ago you were still thinking about doing it.

Cor-rect, Waldo. But I'm not sure it needed such a long gestation for what turned out to be half an afternoon's work, if you exclude making the wooden screws, which I made years ago (for another set of bar clamps that are still being thought about ).

Procrastination is a skill, too...

Can any of you think of reasons why one would not just drill and tap holes direct into a workbench apron, or a block of hardwood behind the apron. A vice like that would seem to be useful for all sorts of other things as well.