Trying Out an Emmert Vise Clone

[Bob Smalser]

Was hired for a job at the end of the month that requires a freestanding bench, something I’m not using in my temporary shop, so I drug my father’s old bench out of storage to fix up for the job. As part of the fixup I sprung for one of those 200-dollar Emmert U-Series Patternmaker Vise clones made in Taiwan. Always wanted an old Emmert or Oliver, but finding a complete one at a reasonable price has been a bit of a challenge….I’ve had good luck with Taiwanese castings before, so why not? 200 bucks is less than half the going rate for a complete Emmert, and if Highland Hardware with ship 60 pounds 3000 miles to me for 12 bucks, now is the time.

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I was just a little shaver, but one of my first memories is “helping” him make that bench. He’d just quit his job at a large urban shipyard to move his young family back to the country, and was building a new shop from scratch like I am today. He didn’t have any power tools yet, and that entire bench was made using hand tools…an old-growth, 20 rings/inch Longleaf Pine frame with an American Beech top laid up using rough-cut 2X2’s through-bolted with threaded rod and steel drifts. In fact, the frame joints are also bolted together using old black iron square-head bolts and drifts….except for the lack of galvanizing just like he bolted up minesweeper frames for the Navy.

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http://mprime.com/Emmert/how_to.htm#How%20to%20Install

Carl Mathews has an excellent site on these patternmaker vises, to include mounting instructions that provide the most desirable installation with the rear jaw face flush with the bench. The instructions and template that come with the clone mount the vise with the rear jaw in front of the bench, which takes up 4 or so more inches of space than necessary, and isn’t as well balanced.

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Unfortunately, that’s the way I had to mount the clone, because of the location of Dad’s bolts through the unglued beech top. After 50 years of hard use, that top was worn hollow and out of square, and as it had too much sentimental value to replace, I merely made an overlay of mixed-species strips 1 1/2” thick and bedded it onto the old top.

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The easiest way to mount one of these vises is to make a bench especially for it. Placing the vise between two legs rather than hanging off the end would be wise, and if the top is made exactly 1 5/8” thick, minimal mortising is required for installation. Typical for me, I did it the hard way in a bench top now 3 ½” thick….and as Dad only flattened to top of that bench back in 1954, the big plunge router got to take the day off in favor of the big chisels.

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As is my wont, all the critical bearing surfaces that will take a pounding were bedded in thickened epoxy…10,000 gunsmiths can’t be wrong…the Record clone end vise I also installed is shown in the pic above.

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I like quick-action vises, something that’d be impossible to do on an Emmert, and not common in end vises and I used my old Jet in an end vise installation that features a sliding board in addition to the vise dog that can be locked into position to hold a large panel against the bench dogs. The travel on the vise is 7 ½”, and the dog holes in the bench were drilled to match.

Continued…

[Bob Smalser]

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Range of motion isn’t a problem with the Emmert, which has over 13” of usable travel…

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…allows the jaws to be skewed 5 degrees either way to hold mild tapers…

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…comes with an auxiliary jaw that’ll hold up to a 20-degree taper…

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…and is just as stable holding work pieces at 90 degrees at any degree of rotation as it is holding them level.

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The vise is surprisingly simple, using cam locks to hold any degree of elevation and rotation desired. The rotating collar cam lock on the right allows 360-degrees of rotation and the tilt arm cam lock on the left allows over 90 degrees of elevation. One fault of the clone is the direction to mount that cast iron tilt arm base to the bench with the #10, ¾” cheapo screws provided. They have to be pulling my leg. J As that tilt arm must absorb some pounding, I used White Oak blocking and #10 machine screws 2” long, in addition to bedding and gluing the base using marine epoxy. Machine screws run into a properly sized hole are much stronger in every respect than common wood screws, and a tad of propane torch will easily release my bulletproof installation when the time comes.

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The handle supplied also has to feed the stove as soon as I get around to turning a properly sized one….but other than those picayunes, the castings and machining are excellent…the vise required no calibration of its adjustment features and when mounting the leather jaw pads I got perfectly-even squeeze out of the contact cement, which means the jaws are as flat as they need to be.

[Bill Simmeth]

Bob, as usual an exquisite post with wonderful documentation. Thanks for taking the time to share it.

Bill Simmeth
Delaplane, VA

[Richard Wolf]

Nice post Bob, I always love to see your work.

Richard

[Alan Turner]

Bob,

I too am an Emmert fan. I have a no. 2 on my primary bench, with the 3d jaw, and it is great for shaping odd sized pieces, cabiole legs, etc., with its only fault, as you noted, being that it is not quick action, but the threads are 2 tpi, so it isn't too bad. The jaws are 14 x 4, whereas on the No. 1 they are 18 x 7. Mine weighs about 55 lbs, but the No. 1 is, I think, 86 lbs.

I also did not build the bench for it, but instead for an old quick action, but I was able to mount it with the back jaw flush to the bench, which I prefer. It is ouside of the legs, but this has not been a problem. My bench is 12/4 hard maple. Bit of work with a gouge to get the hub set in correctly. I put a screw up under the hub, so when I let it down to vertical, it is a true 90 deg. to the bench.

The hinge is the primary mount, and calls for a No. 18 wood screw. If you need any No. 18's, let me know as I have quite a collection, having bought all of the screws from a pattern shop. No. 18's are hard to find. Most of these are unplated, and so look right as well.

Enjoy your clone.

[Bob Smalser]

Jamestown and Tacoma Screw carry #18's, along with Pacific Fastener.

The plates on the clones mount with two #10 machine screw screws and a #10 wood screw. In a mortised plate, that's adequate, although it sounds on the light side.