High Vise

[Eugene Dixon]

Finishing this up by glueing cork pads of the leg and chop face. Knob is walnut. Vise is Sapele and Hard Maple. 3-4 coats of lacquer and a final rub with Bri wax. Now to build a work bench. Needing wood for a bench top. Anyone?

480959480960

[Prashun Patel]

Fancy. What did you use for vise hardware. What's the curved 'handle' for?

I considered building a high vise. Nice for carving.

[Eugene Dixon]

Prashun,

Screw is from Walmart, a dumbbell shaft. The scissors (not shown) to keep the faces parallel were fab'd from 1/8" steel. Bearings are shelf items. the pins are 5/16" steel rod. The handle is used to pull the chop back as the knob only tightens.

[Frederick Skelly]

Now that's a thing of beauty! Looks like it belongs in Derek's shop!

[John Kananis]

Really cool... and creative, especially the parts sourcing.

[Patrick Kane]

Really cool... and creative, especially the parts sourcing.
Agreed, that is very creative with using a barbell. How much did everything cost you?

My work bench was made as cheaply as possible. I bought dry 8/4 poplar from a condemned slovak club for $0.25 or thereabouts a boardfoot. They were 16-18' timbers too. My base was KD 1com 16/4 cherry that i picked up for about a buck a boardfoot. I think the cherry base looks great with the cherry end cap and cherry vise chop. The poplar top leaves a bit to be desired--especially with how loud your high vise is--but it was cheap and i like that its on the softer side. Finally, its a bench. These guys that make their benches out of purple heart, bubinga, and walnut makes me think they are missing the point a bit. My top looks like a post-war sherman tank. Its marked up and scarred.

Have fun with the bench build, it was the first 'real' project i worked on, and i still have very fond memories of working on it.

[Eugene Dixon]

Cost? This was from a workshop sponsored by NCWoodworkers.net. You can find plans and BoM in the resource section there. $85 for the hardware, the metal scissors were fab'd by one of the hosts. The maple is from West Penn and the sapele was left over from the pantry barn door build for the house.

Just a note on the barbell. You have to cut the rubber grip section off of the screw. Not hard to do.