My DIY wagon vise

[Marko Milisavljevic]

Hi Winton,

Thanks for your comments. I must admit I had little woodworking time since I built the vise and it has not seen enough use in a variety of situations to make conclusions about longevity. I can say this much:

- Dog block is built nearly the same way as Benchcrafted vise (same issue with thin side walls around dog hole) - mine is overall a little beefier. Considering that quite a few of those were built, we'd probably have heard if there were issues with that design, although it is very possible users of those are just gentleman woodworkers like myself.
- Kreg rails are pretty strong, and cranking the vise harder than I can imagine needing produces no discernible bending of rail walls. There are a couple of reasons for that: top rail wall is thin, but is supported by the bench so there is nowhere to bend, bottom wall is a lot stronger/thicker because it forms the T-rail and you can't really flex it. If using ordinary mitre channel, I would definitely screw in a strip of hard wood under it to prevent outward bending on bottom. Due to length of the rails, there is no stress near ends of the rails, where it would be most prone to bending.
- I don't know how it would work for spreading, but I don't really see that it would perform very differently than clamping.

I went through this design in my head over and over and had a lot of concerns about strength. When I built it, I realized it is much stronger than I expected it to be. Alas, without more hard use, I can't make a definitive statement, but I will update this thread if anything ever happens to it.

[Winton Applegate]

I will update this thread if anything ever happens to it.

To quote one of my young helpers :

Peace Out !

I am not exactly clear on what all that means but seems good to use here.

[Scott Stewart]

I really want to build something like this (already have the hardware in my grubby little hand). Anyone see an issue with the pressure against the flange screws? I've been wondering if I should go all the way through the end cap with bolts there.

Thanks,

Scott

[Marko Milisavljevic]

I was concerned about that as it seems it could be the first thing to fail. I decided to keep it simple and use screws (I just got a tap and die set before I built mine, so I was tap-happy and went with, if I recall correctly, 1/4-20 thread in hard maple). If something ever happens to screws, you can convert to bolt + barrel nuts easily without having to dismantle anything - http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/pag...59&cat=1,43455 or many other possibilities. Wood screws can together probably hold over 1000lbs pullout force in hard maple.

[Scott Stewart]

Thanks Marko, I appreciate the information. Scott

[ian maybury]

Hi Marko. Nice going - good to see some lateral thinking. Presuming it holds up the all wood carriage/dog block is a key step in reducing the project to something eminently DIY-able.

I'm about to start building my own bench, and have the parts ready for a DIY wagon vise too. Not thinking of the possibility of an all wood block I ended up doing a fair bit of machining and metal cutting to get to where you are. I cannibalised the ACME threaded boss from the base plate of an unused Lee valley large face vice - which when screwed to a base in 10mm steel plate (which will mount the carriage/dog block) will run in rails made from a scrapped length of UHMW lined steel channel from an old industrial pallet conveyor. (a stock part used by builders of automated assembly systems) I'm using the Lee Valley screw too - but mounted in a locally sourced flange mounted self aligning ball bearings, and fitted with the now de-rigeur cast iron hand wheel from a tooling supplies place.

The parts are ready for a DIY leg vise too - very similar to the Benchcrafted scissors model, but based around the screw from a Lee Valley Twin Screw vise. I bought the cast scissors linkage from Benchcrafted's German distributor. Not sure whether to fit a handwheel or not.....