Jorgensen vise mounting issue

[Ken Cohen]

Hi (again):

After using great advice from this forum on the best way to bolt a vise to MDF, I figured I was home free after mounting the vise this afternoon. Unfortunately, no such luck -- and I'm sorry to say I'm back for help.

The vise is a Jorgensen 10" with the back buried in the apron as shown below:

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zGAEh1KA3WM/SkbPl8pVPjI/AAAAAAAAAwU/4rerOxxUyrg/s512/vise.jpg
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zGAEh1KA3WM/Skbbozy1keI/AAAAAAAAAwc/dkJu7cXfqA8/s400/vise%20ext.jpg
I am generally following a Woodsmith bench plan from 2004 that incorporated this particular vise model.

My problem is that the outside vise face is toed away from the bench face rather than toward it (or at least parallel). I'd guess roughly a 1/16 is open at the top of the vise when the bottom is tight against the apron.

Prior to mounting, I was pretty sure that everything was square (though I didn't check the vise itself). Clearly, one step is to recheck that tomorrow.

My bigger concern is that the vise (per the plan) is held in place solely by the two bolts at the rear of the base -- leading to a potential high torque situation and downward slant. There are subtle symptoms of this possibility: the guide rods are bottoming against my cutouts on the apron (though lots of other things could explain this) and there is a very small gap (enough to take a .01 feeler gauge) on the apron side of the base vs. the MDF.

The vise comes with mounting holes on the rear face to attach to the side of the bench -- and emphatic instructions about the need to carefully shim the side/bottom of the vise to maintain tight contact with each surface (to maintain the integrity of the casting). The Woodsmith plan ignores this connection.

Couple of questions:

Is correcting a couple degrees of toe out (vs. toe in) worth it? Is this much ado about nothing?

Assuming that my woodworking is square, how can I best bring the vise up to the right orientation? Given the extreme rear location of the bolts, it's not clear how to shim it.

Should I just bite the bullet and figure out how to screw the now buried rear face into the MDF side? (One minute of work if I had done it before the apron glue-up). If so, I figured I'd drill through the apron, expose the screw holes, screw the rear to the MDF (back to the holding power question) and then plug the apron holes. Ugh.

Once again, thanks for your help and patience.

Ken

BTW, I just looked at the picture -- and should point out that the rear mounting holes are not on the visible part of the rear vise. They are buried in the MDF. The exposed part of the rear vise is not machined flat -- an additional challenge if tapping new holes is a possible solution.

[Bill Houghton]

First off, it's disappointing that Jorgensen has dumbed down ("value engineered," he said sarcastically) the design. There should properly be four holes to bolt the bottom to the bench.

You do NOT want a gap at the top of the vise. Every wood vise has some play, which will tend to tilt the jaw out from the bench as you tighten; so the top of the moving jaw should contact the bench first, by about 1/16". This way, as you tighten it, the jaw will come parallel to the bench.

From your pictures, it seems that one possibility is: 1) you can drill through to the holes in the back jaw, screw those in, then 2) shim down your back bolts until you get the slant needed.

Another, if your vise mounting is firm as it stands, is to install a wood face on the moving jaw that is tapered across its height by the amount needed to correct the jaw tilt.

Vises put quite a bit of pressure on, and you may find that you need to take approach #1; but approach #2 will be less grief in the short run and doesn't prevent approach #1 if it doesn't work out. So I'd try an adjusting wood face on the moving jaw before tearing into the bench.

Side comment: every tool needs maintenance; I'm not sure that installing a vise in your benchtop that will be hard to remove for maintenance without tearing up the benchtop was a good idea.

[Greg Hines, MD]

Presuming your vise is solid...

I would taper the front jaw. Remove it, and put a thin shim under the bottom edge, and run it through your planer a couple of times. That should taper it slightly, and that is all you are needing.

Doc

[Ken Cohen]

Spoke to tech service at Adjustable Clamp -- very knowledgeable and helpful.

Given that I'm only off by a little bit, they too recommended planing the adjustable wood face to achieve the proper toe in.

And, though there are no guarantees when you don't follow the instructions, they felt that relying solely on the bottom bolts for support was fine.

(Though they wondered why I didn't just screw the rear face into the top prior to gluing on the apron -- good question).

Their concern about shimming faces is to prevent the rear casting from cracking if you crank down both the bottom and rear faces of the rear casting.

Hope this helps anyone who faces this situation.

Thanks to forum members who quickly figured out the answer.

Ken