Bob Smalser
05-01-2005, 10:02 PM
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.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95066299.jpg
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.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95087882.jpg
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.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95074176.jpg
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.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95065748.jpg
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95065744.jpg
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.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95065753.jpg
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.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95066139.jpg
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95066141.jpg
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…
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95066299.jpg
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.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95087882.jpg
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.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95074176.jpg
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.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95065748.jpg
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95065744.jpg
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.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95065753.jpg
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.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95066139.jpg
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/7297605/95066141.jpg
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…