why I am not a fan of the leg vise.

[Tom Bussey]

As a kid I was always building something. At a real young age I would use a hoe to build roads in the dirt. I used a garden hose to dig caves in my area until my dad found out what I was doing and put a stop to it. A piece of 2 x4 with the front cut in a vee and a block on top with some nails pounded in made a great battle ship. I would walk 6 blocks to the local lumber yard and ask for the cut offs at the saw. They ripped and cross cut for people in them days. I would carry as much as I could home and build something even if it was only a spear.

My grandfather, who was a retired carpenter, and lived in California most of the time, would come and stay the summer with us. My mother always had a project for him. He would work in the morning but the afternoon he got with his friends and or went fishing. Anyway he got a bench that looked something like what is now known as a Mickelson bench. It had a leg vise on it. It was kind of rickety and at 7 or 8 I couldn't get it to work very well. The whole bench left something to be desired. I guess I didn't understand the part at the bottom and that the pin needed to be moved to get it to work. I mean even at 8 years old I could drive nails with the best of them. But that vise escaped me.

Anyway I gave up on ever using the vise and the bench was really to high for me at that age

Pleas don't misunderstand me. Todays cris- cross by Bench Crafted us awesome. I made mine out of wood and it works great to. My bench screw is like the one on that old bench and works almost as smooth as Bench Crafted's does. It is the cris cross that actually allows Bench Crafted's leg vise to wok as smoothly as it does.

I think it was the early experiences I had with not being able to get the leg vise to work at all or not very well at other times. That experience with that leg vise even though it was seventy years ago stops me from liking the leg vise. I mean a 2-4 clamped between my knee and the cement stoop worked better for me that that old leg vise.

I know for a fact I sawed a lot of cement on the stoop and every year when he got there the first thing he did was to sharpen the saw. And every year I got a freshly sharpened saw. And I still have that saw.

And to my surprise I think I have been woodworking longer than I thought. Here is a picture of his saws that he used to make a living with. My dads saw is not with them. It is on the wall in my shop and it is sharp. The are displayed in our living room.

474754

[Prashun Patel]

That’s a cool story. We love what we love and there should be no apologies.

I have had a love hate relationship with my leg vise. At first it was great. Versatile and powerful. As I got older I disliked having to stoop to loosen it, or to shim it. But now, even more older I find I am loving it again - not because I have overcome the ergonomics, but because I have naturally adapted my ways of working to accommodate it. Like family, I’m appreciating it for what it is - not for what i want it to be.

[Jim Koepke]

+1 on being a "cool story."

My bench vises used to bug me until a simple way to control the racking was found > https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?183743

It seems every method of holding one's work has advantages and/or disadvantages. Sometime learning to work with what we have is all that can be done for the moment.

jtk

[chris carter]

I am also not a fan of the leg vise. Actually, it's not leg vises - it's just I'm not a fan of ANY vise on the front of the bench.
474755

[Stew Denton]

Tom,

That is a neat story. Tools can tie generations together. Those are a neat keepsake.

I have a couple of my grandfathers tools and use them some, although not as many as I would like, and some of my dads also. Dad had a 605 Bedrock that I have dated about 1925. I use that plane a lot.

I hope to pass them on to my one son in law that likes hand tool woodworking, and hopefully one of my grandsons will want them after that.

Stew

[Luke Dupont]

Cool story indeed! I'm not that old (early-mid 30's) but I have similar childhood experiences. Your story brings back a ton of memories for me.

My grandfather was also a woodworker, who built mainly rocking chairs. He would occasionally make toys for us. I remember I really wanted a wooden car that I could sit in and ride down the hill (we had a long drive way that sloped down a hill in the house I grew up) and we got some lawn mower wheels and built it together.

I'd frequently go into the woods, cut some sapling, and carve it into bows or swords or what have you. Always making something. And always with dull tools that I didn't know how to sharpen. I got pretty good at driving nails and carving though, and improvising all manner of work holding without a vise. A vise never really occurred to me actually. My vise was typically what Stan Covington likes to refer to as "The Venerable Butt Clamp." That, or sitting cross legged and holding it in some complicated manner wedged between my legs and the floor, or butted up against the wall or something.

There are many things that I couldn't figure out which left bad memories for me, that later, after I figured them out and learned to properly use them, I did a 180 and now absolutely love.

The command line interface on computers is one of those things. Remember DOS? Yeah, I couldn't figure that out at all as a kid. What do I type to make the computer do stuff? And I have to figure out all these commands? Well, fast forward to the modern era and I am in love with the command line interface on Linux. The internet has made it so easy to learn and look up this stuff. Now, I can make my computer do complicated stuff by just typing a quick command or setting up a script I can run, and I don't have to open some program and navigate some menu system or find some obscure setting somewhere? Awesome!

Anyway, I'm curious, what kind of vise do you prefer?


I am also not a fan of the leg vise. Actually, it's not leg vises - it's just I'm not a fan of ANY vise on the front of the bench.
474755

Nice. I've never had a work bench with an apron in the front, but always thought that if I did I might not need a front vise.
Even now I'm wondering if I need my front vise or if I should just use a removable moxon vise when I need one.

[James Pallas]

Great memories Tom. In my case it was my uncle that lead me to woodworking. Making repairs to the house gave me a start. When the saws, hammers and nails came out I dropped the toys. Eight or nine I guess I was. I also learned about reel type push mowers about then too. I would get in and try to push. He would get behind with his longer arms and “help” me. Took twice as long because my eyes were about even with the handles. My Uncle truly had the patience of Jobe.
Jim

[Tom Bussey]

Luke,

I prefer a shoulder vise and a tail vise. But a wagon vise is expectable in a pinch over a tail vise.

To others if this post as triggered some memories I would like to hear them. In my mind I saw the old bench in our basement and saw my arm sawing on the stoop. Good memories lift the heart.

[Stew Denton]

Tom,

As per your second post, I thought about memories as a kid and decided to write a couple down. As a little kid I too build roads, etc., in the dirt. My favorite was a brick that had a half brick still mortared to the top. It made a great bull dozer for working in the dirt. We lived in a really small town with gravel streets, and when it rained we had water running along the side of the road by our house. I liked to build dams out of mud and small sticks to pond up the water.

When a little older I built a wooden crane to play with, and did many other such things. A bit older I figured out how to make black power (any wonder I became a chemist?) and made small bombs with it and set them off electrically (had to figure out how to make my own igniters.)

Still, most of the stuff I made was probably somewhat crude, but then again, I was pretty young.

Like you and the others I frequently was building things. It is no wonder that so many of us on this site all ended up still making stuff. I too am looking forward to hearing about things the others did and made as kids.

Regards,

Stew

[Tom M King]

I've been building stuff for a long time too. This newspaper clipping from 1959. I don't have any memories of my Dad, or other ancestors building anything.

[Mark Rainey]

Great picture Tom. Loved the idea of woodworking as a 10 year old, but had no instruction. Got frustrated when I could not crosscut a pine board anywhere near square - never heard of a try square. Tried fixing our back rickety wood porch. Wooden plank tipped over and split my head open - milkman came by and washed me up and told my mom it would heal by itself - don't take him to the hospital, they will put stitches in it. It healed, but my woodworking ended. 30 years later I got a book "Woodworking for Kids" for my son. I found it more interesting than him. My woodworking resumed.

[Luke Dupont]

It's amazing how much the internet has helped to educate people.

I'm just old enough to have grown up before people really got to using the internet, and long before Youtube and such. Even in the early days of the internet, people with such skills as woodworking were few and far between.

Like Mark Rainey mentioned, my work was super crude and I had no idea what I was doing. I would have been thrilled to learn what a try square or marking gauge is, or how to use a plane, or how to sharpen anything to any degree whatsoever.

My first trip to the internet was when I was a kid looking to make a bow. I forgot what forum, but I joined some traditional archery forum. Asked a bunch of questions, and even had some really nice guy send me a stave to work on.

I had to look up what a "drawknife" was, didn't know what a spoke shave or scraper was, and didn't really appreciate the value of a plane (what? I can only make straight lines and I can't get into nooks and crannies?). And the hatchet, which everyone had such reverence for, proved to be useless for me, as the only hatchet I knew of was the dull, rusted one from the shed. I didn't know they were supposed to be so sharp as to carve with. Well, needless to say, I didn't get very far on that stave of Osage Orange. I did make some okayish board bows though, especially when I found or bought some sharp tools (did almost everything with a Mora "drawknife" / splitting knife, which stayed sharp a very long time).

When I got a bit older, I decided I wanted to make a few items out of wood. I didn't intend to be a woodworker. Just wanted to make various random things, from Instruments to weapons for my Martial Arts practice...

So naturally I went to the big box store, bought a bunch of hand tool shaped objects, put them to wood, and got very, very frustrated. For a time I thought that I needed to buy a bunch of hand held power tools because, gosh darnit, these hand tools just aren't getting anything done. Then I said "wait, no, maybe I just don't know what I'm doing and need to learn." I found it very very hard at first to find any good info on how to use handtools, perhaps because I shied away from furniture making style content (I wasn't interested in furniture, still am not so much), but every resource I found of how to make anything was all using machines, which taught me nothing. Finally came across communities like this one, and then later, people like Paul Sellers started popping up and making super beginner friendly videos showing how to actually use various tools. When I finally learned to use a try square, marking knife, sharpen chisels and set up a plane, etc., my world changed and I realized "wow, handtools really are great" and "geez, why didn't I learn this years ago?."

If there's one thing I want for my son as he is growing up, it's to have access to knowledge on how to do what he wants to do. That, and enough quiet, free time to do it -- perhaps the rarest and most valuable commodity that everyone and everything seems intent on capturing.

[Mark Rainey]

If there's one thing I want for my son as he is growing up, it's to have access to knowledge on how to do what he wants to do. That, and enough quiet, free time to do it -- perhaps the rarest and most valuable commodity that everyone and everything seems intent on capturing.

"If I was young again I'd pay attention to the little know dimension called the taste of endless time
Just like water it runs right through our fingers but the flavor of it lingers like a rich red wine " Chris Smither 'Leave the Light On'

[Frederick Skelly]

Lotta great stories here. Thanks for sharing all of them!

[steven c newman]

Back in the mid to late 60s...during High School Ind. Arts classes....we'd "sign-out" the hand tools we would need that day, from a Tool Crib...everyone in that class also got a turn IN the Tool Crib.
One of the "Tests" we had to pass...we were given a sheet of paper that listed the 6 or 8 wood joints he had to make, with hand tools....and each was graded on how well we'd make them.

There were about 4 "benches" in the class room ( used to be the school's old basketball court)....large, thick, SQUARE tops....with a quick release vise at each corner. Base was metal, with lock-able storage "lockers" for each user to stash his stuff into. We were also required to wear an apron while in the shop part of the room. String at the top of the blue denim apron went over your head, and hung around your neck...we also learned how to tie the thing around in front. Yes, they did have one pocket....mainly for the pencil.

And, yes...I did indeed pass that wood joint test.

[Jon Snider]

That’s a cool story. We love what we love and there should be no apologies.

I have had a love hate relationship with my leg vise. At first it was great. Versatile and powerful. As I got older I disliked having to stoop to loosen it, or to shim it. But now, even more older I find I am loving it again - not because I have overcome the ergonomics, but because I have naturally adapted my ways of working to accommodate it. Like family, I’m appreciating it for what it is - not for what i want it to be.

Once again, where is the “like” button?