Tips for Making Moxon Vise Work With Bench Dogs?

[Steve H Graham]

Now that my vise is working, I have to get it ready to use. Because I built it into the bench, I would like to modify it so I can use it with bench dogs, and I am wondering if anyone has any tips.

I have seen cast iron vises with cavities in the jaws to hold little pieces of brass or hard wood, to stand up and put pressure on the workpiece so it can be pushed against dogs.

I thought maybe I should do that, but then I thought of the way a Moxon vise works. As I understand it, I want to set it so I only have to move one wheel to move the work in and out of the vise. If that's true, maybe I should put the vertical piece above the right screw instead of in the middle of the jaw.

I am cheap, so I am not eager to hack holes into the maple jaw until I have a plan.

[Stew Denton]

Hi Steve,

I have two concerns about the idea. First, metal vises have two heavy rods running thru them to help prevent the top of the vise from tipping back when the pop up dog is used, and to help keep the jaws parallel to each other in normal use.

Secondly, metal vises have metal jaws that will resist buckling in the middle, and the metal jaws are full thickness through the entire width of the vise. If you cut a vertical hole in the wooden jaws, that will significantly weaken the jaws at that point. Possibly leading to buckling at that point of the jaws if you really put the whap to them. To be consistent with the way metal jaw vises are made, you would have to add a wooden plate on to the face nearest you, and bore that plate for the dog. That still doesn't solve the problem of the jaws tipping back.

Just my two bits.

Stew

[Maurice Ungaro]

Steve, go for it. If you don't like it, you can fill the holes with dowels.

Stew, if you tighten a vise so much that the maple jaws deflect, you've got problems. Not much pressure is needed to secure a work piece.

[Phil Mueller]

I tend to agree with Maurice. Two things; first, too much clamping force and you risk bowing the work piece...so you only want enough to secure it. Second, if planning, plane away from the vise so the force is against the bench dog, not the vise.

[Brian Holcombe]

I think Stew's concerns are valid.

[Prashun Patel]

I recently built a bench-on-bench that uses two press screws as a moxon-style vise.

My vise excels at clamping things like drawers that go the full depth of the chop. It's horrible at clamping near the top edge. It racks vertically quite badly. So I experience Stew's first issue. Putting dogs in the chop would be a non starter for mine. If you have addressed that concern then disregard this.

I am still contemplating a planing and sawing solution for my b on b, and am considering full chop-height bench hooks to serve as planing and saw stops.

[Steve H Graham]

It never occurred to me that this would be a problem. I'm glad I asked for tips.

To put it to the test, I stuck a piece of wood above one screw and tightened the vise. I'm sure the jaws are not quite parallel, but not by much. It will work.

The vise has large, heavy washers between the wheels and jaw, and they tend to distribute the force and push it toward vertical.

[Steve H Graham]

A while back, I made a couple of little dogs out of aluminum, as a stopgap measure until I have a serious bench with all the doodads. They fit in holes around 3/8" wide. I am thinking the ideal solution is to put three holes in the top jaw, to fit these things. I can put one wherever I need. If it turns out to be a stupid idea, the holes and the damage will be slight, and I can always glue dowels in there to fill them back in.

[Judson Green]

On my tail vise... See the cunck of cherry glued on for reinforcement. Sort of carved into the jaw a bit under the cherry so my finger could get to the dog in the vise and pop it up.

319409 319410

Its worked out pretty well for me

[Steve H Graham]

Here is what I have so far.

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[Steve H Graham]

I made four preliminary holes for holdfasts and bench dogs, and it looks like it will work fine. I thought I would have to glue another thickness of pine under the top, but it's holding well. I can improve it later and add new holes as I need to.

The holdfasts are 3/4" in diameter, but I keep seeing bench dogs on the web that are considerably thicker. Obviously, I want to use the same holes. I was thinking of doing what Paul Sellers does, grooving a dowel and sticking a wire in it as a spring. I assume that will work with 3/4" dogs, but I hope people will correct me if there is some issue with it.

Because I do not have dogs yet, I stuck a board in the vise using holdfasts as dogs, to see if it would work. Looks okay.

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I figured I would run to Home Depot and get a 3/4" dowel, since I don't have anything like that handy.

[Bruce Page]

Here's mine, simple 3/4" drop in brass dogs. The rear dogs have a flange to keep them from dropping through.

[Steve H Graham]

I started making bench dogs yesterday. I watched Paul Sellers make one from an old broom handle, and I figured I could do that.

Home Depot sells 3/4" dowels in 36" lengths for $5, and they sell hardwood roller handles that are about 60" long for $7, so I went with the luxury option.

[Stew Denton]

Steve,

I went to the Benchcrafted site and read their stuff on building the Moxon vise. In their download on building the Moxon vise, using their hardware, they recommend increasing the thickness of the movable jaw to 3 inches if you are going to use bench dogs. Their basic plans show jaws to be 1 3/4 inches thick, to make use of 8/4 stock.

I am not sure of the reason for what seems to me to be very thick jaws, but that is what they recommend. They said that the original Moxon vises used much thicker lumber than is used today, as do the others from that era who described similar vises, 3 inch stock was a common size. They do advise that back then the vises were also used as presses, I assume for gluing, so that may have necessitated extra thickness.

The reason that they recommend 3 inch thickness my be to have extra surface area for the threads to ride on, again possibly to prevent the jaws from tipping back.

Stew

[Steve H Graham]

Interesting information. Thanks.

I guess if I need to do that, I can glue another piece of maple to the existing jaw. So far it's working fine, though.