For the past few months I have been discussing a parallel guide adjuster designed by Jim Ritter. My input has largely been devil's advocate while Jim sharpened up the design for production. I have no interest in this venture other than wanting to see a good product made available for others to use.


The leg vise parallel guide adjuster is an alternative to the St Peter's Cross, both of which enable a leg vise to function without the pin adjuster. No more stooping and setting the parallel guide for a specific width. Instead there is a single setting for all work pieces. In theory there should also be more pressure as the chop is more upright.


Yesterday I completed assembling the pre-production kit, and here are a few pics with my impressions.


From the front you will not notice any change to my leg vise ..





Close up you may note that I have replaced the steel screws with brass ..





From the side you will see a solid parallel guide and, above it, a chain ..





Solid paralel guide?!


Yeah .. in for a penny, in for a pound ... off came the parallel guide of my 6-month old leg vise ..





.. and replaced with this new, hole-less version ..





Inside the bench the chain mechanism can be seen ...





Outside ..





In all, including building a new parallel guide (which I do not expect others to do), the installation took a day.


So how does it work?


It grips ...





... and grips ...





.. and continues to grip ..





.. no matter how little there is to grip ..





Downside? The mechanism requires that the internal wheel guide is removed .. this one ..





As a result, there is a little more resistance in the parallel guide moving back-and-forth compared to before. The chop still moves smoothly, and the effort is similar to that of the Record #52 1/2 I had on my old bench. Of course, this may just reflect the need for a little fine tuning since the parallel guide is new. As it stands, this is a rejuvenated vise, one that promises to work with a much greater range and considerably less effort.


Once Jim gives the OK I will post a pictorial of how I installed the kit.


Regards from Perth


Derek