I started to build a Moxon wise. I looked through my two work bench books, but found some plans on line. I found down loadable planes on Benchcrafted.com. The planes called of the vise to be made out of 7/4 or 1 3/4 thick stock. I had bought some thick walnut at an auction and I just happened to have a piece 1 3/4 thick and big enough to get all of the pieces I needed. I chose the walnut because of a several reasons. One, I didn't know if it was air dried or kiln dried. I don't like to use both in the same project because of wood movement at different rates. I am not sure if it does move at different rates but I don't want to find out the hard way. Second walnut isn't one of my favorite woods and I don't build with it much, and the third is I had it. Actually I think wood 1 1/2 inches would be thick enough.
I started to build a Moxon wise. I looked through my two work bench books, but found some plans on line. I found down loadable planes on Benchcrafted.com. The planes called of the vise to be made out of 7/4 or 1 3/4 thick stock. I had bought some thick walnut at an auction and I just happened to have a piece 1 3/4 thick and big enough to get all of the pieces I needed. I chose the walnut because of a several reasons. One, I didn't know if it was air dried or kiln dried. I don't like to use both in the same project because of wood movement at different rates. I am not sure if it does move at different rates but I don't want to find out the hard way. Second walnut isn't one of my favorite woods and I don't build with it much, and the third is I had it. Actually I think wood 1 1/2 inches would be thick enough.
I would like to start out by saying that there is nothing wrong with the plans. This is just me tweaking them to fit me personally. The size of the stabilizer is 1 3/4 x 2 x 22 1/4. I made mine about 2 1/2 high because I had a large knot I wanted to cover up. It turned out to be a bad idea and I will tell you why later. The 22 1/4 also turned out not to be a great idea for me. Because of my bench dog hole placement I find the vise sets much farther on my tail vise than I would like. I would like the moxon vise more in the middle of my bench. If it was shorter it would have worked better on my bench. Or if I would have glued it off center I would have worked better and again I say on my bench.
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On just about every home made bench the holes and placements are in a different location, so it is something a person might like to look at if building one for their bench. As you can see I would prefer the vise to not st so far on the tail vise. I also wasn't sure if the tail vise would hold it. against a twisting motion so I added a slot in the vise so it could be clamped down. I missed a picture of just clamping it down on the table with clamps. Again being able to clamp it down would depend on the size of your clamps. The drawers on my bench fit flush just behind the dog holes so it was difficult to tighten the clamp upside down under the table. So at this point, the only thing I was really happy with is the back jaw, it is thick enough that if I push the back jaw against the dogs it aligns the jaw with the edge of my bench and sticks over about 1/4 of an inch so the side of the bench didn't interfere with what was being clamped.
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The front jaw went just fine and you can see some wood clamped up. I also had a piece of walnut 2 1/4 inches thick so I clamped it up also. Some of the things I found out is the screws still stuck out to far and i didn't like the feeling of being trapped in. I could see myself walking away and and jamming my hip into the steel screw. You can see the hip catcher in several pictures. I also though about cutting off 3 1/2 inches of the screw. That would allow me to still clamp something about 2 1/2 inches thick. Also with the front jaw being as high as it is causes a knuckle buster point when tightening the left hand screw. Anyway I cut the corners off from the vises and the problem of finger busting is still there so I plan on putting a 1 /2 inch radius and see if that works. I had already put a 1/8 radius all around to get rid of the sharp corners. If that doesn't work I will make a spacer behind the handle
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And way I cut the corner off from the back vise to make clamping easier. One can screw the screw out the back of the vise to get rid of the hip catcher. The nuts only need to be hand tight for the vise to work so no wrench is needed anyway. It is pictured. The stabilizer, if beginning from scratch, I would make it only high enough to that I could add another screw in the middle so that narrower pieces could be clamped better. My stabilize is to high for that, I can't put a hole in the middle. It interferes with the nut.
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I am sorry that I couldn't add a finished picture of the front, only 8 pictures. But I hope this helps someone when making one
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