Thanks for the complements on my bench top and lessons learned post. It may look nice in those shots, but the underside is hideous. Ipe is tuff to cut for anything less than carbide. Chopping out grooves for the vises took its toll in drill bits and chisel edges. It looks like it was gutted with a hatchet by the time I was done.
Off line comments asked about how I built the wooden screw vise.
Attachment 115564
As with most every jig in my shop, the vise was designed on the fly with materials at hand or readily available. For the screw and nut, I started with Rockler’s Hardwood Stool. It goes on sale every once in a while for $39. I figured if it can hold my weight, it should handle the stress of clamping a workpiece to my bench (and it does).
http://images.rockler.com/rockler/im...660-01-500.jpg
I carved out a notch in the underside of my bench to seat the wood nut into. The screw head and collet were carved/sculpted on a band saw. The movable face of the vise has two pins (wood dowels, top and bottom) that set into the collet and secure the screw to that face.
The fixed face of the vise runs the whole 33’’ width of the bench in a sliding dovetail. The fixed face of oak does an admirable job of keeping the bench from cupping (so far).
Attachment 115563
The alignment pipes are ¾ inch hot galvanized pipe clamp pipes that Rockler also sells. The pipes are screwed into nuts that are buried between layers of the movable face of the vise.
The design / concept works well, but it is not nearly as robust as I’d like. I plan to replace it with one or more larger wood screws I recently bought at an old tool swap meet.
Thanks for looking.
rick
