How dodgey is your vice?

I bought a really old rickety workbench the other day. really cheap.
Have been getting it up to working condition and pulled the vice off.
The only part that is from an actual vice is the main screw with handle.
It screws into a wonky brass block which is in turn screwed to a block of wood which is then bolted up under the top against the front apron.
The guide rails are pieces of galv pipe with dowel rammed in then screwed through the front of the vice into the dowel.
I intend to replace the old faces with a couple of pieces of 18mm ply then put it all back together.
no reason why it wont work again.
Just need to find a big washer for the main screw to wear against the front face, its jsut against the wood at the moment.
Attachment 468410Attachment 468411Attachment 468412Attachment 468413

Good Morning Craig

Interesting project. That vise looks like it may originally have been a leg vise mechanism that then got "repurposed". Waste not, and all that ... With some TLC no reason why it should not give good service for another 100 years !

My old leg vise has the main screw made from steel, and the main nut made from bronze - tougher than brass - and I think that this was fairly common as the different metals apparently prevented binding.

One question, tho. Are you sure that 18mm ply will be stiff enough and tough enough for replacement facepads? This will partly reflect on how you use your vise.


CHEERS

Graeme

Hey Graeme,
perhaps its bronze. some bronzy brassy kind of metal anyway and clearly home made.
was considering laminating two layers of 18mm. Do you think that would be a good idea?
there is plenty of length in the screw.

Hi Craig

Obviously, two thicknesses of ply will be a lot stiffer then one. The thickness of the existing cheeks will give you a guide.

The next issue is the quality and hardness of the plywood:

• No voids in the laminates,
• No pine - ideally the ply timber should be slightly harder than the timber that you will be holding in the vise.
• No "super-soft" tropical hard woods.

Remember, balsa is a hard wood; so is paulownia; both are far too soft for a vise!


Cheers

Graeme

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by forunna

......perhaps its bronze. some bronzy brassy kind of metal anyway and clearly home made.......

---

Dunno about that, Craig. Very few home handymen would have access to a tap that matches that vise screw thread. I suspect as suggested, it is a screw meant for a leg vise or something like that. Anyway, no reason it won't work for a face vise.

Laminating two pieces of 18mm ply would give you a reasonably stiff jaw, but I would suggest getting hold of a chunk of something like Mountain Ash or similar, at least 50mm thick. That will make a more solid base to fix your guide bars in. I take the opposite view from Graeme, I reckon the inner jaws of a woodwork vise should be soft so they don't mar your work. They also grip better. I line my vice jaws with leather or a softish wood like Camphor-Laurel. These sacrificial liners can be replaced every now & then when they become too ravaged, but it's surprising how long they do last.

One of the challenges with a home-made vise is fixing the guide rails solidly to the moving face. Unless they re solidly attached they won't contribute much to anti-wracking. My solution was to screw the pieces of pipe into pipe-flanges, which are in turn screwed onto the jaw, then covered over with a face-piece. If you have access to a welder, you can just weld piece of flat bar across the end with a couple of holes for coach screws.

If you have the time & can be bothered, you can fit a second set of fixed guide rails. Attachment 468479

The picture should be more or less self-explanatory. The cross piece is clamped firmly on the outer moving guide bars but slides on the two fixed (inner) bars. It's not that difficult to make a vise like this, it does take a bit of care with accurate measuring & hole-drilling, but the result is a very much more solid vise. The jaws remain parallel even if you clamp something only on one side of the vise, though it's always a good idea to use a spacer block if you need to clamp something firmly that way....

Cheers,

Thanks for your thoughts Ian.
will keep it in mind.
craig