Rick A McQuay Posted November 12, 2014 Report Share Posted November 12, 2014 Found in Farm Woodwork by Louis Michael Roehl, 1919. The vise has a triangular set of braces that ride against the top to keep it from racking. I've never seen this before. I will be starting a bench build in a couple months and I'm tempted to try this out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave H Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 I'm not sure how that brace would work? Mine is a traditional parallel guide it was pretty easy to do just some mortising and drilling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick A McQuay Posted November 13, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 As the vise tries to rack it will push the brace into the the the top. How well it works would depend on how well the brace bites into the top. My first thought was to put a skateboard wheel on the end of the brace but on further thought that would be counterproductive. Could be the concept doesn't work well and that's why it was never adopted, or it could work well and was just so obscure that it never caught on. - sent via Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 I'd say that design should work well, even without 'gripping' under the bench. The triangle transfers the forward thrust at the bottom of the chop to and upward thrust against the bench top, holding the chop vertical. Maybe it lost popularity because it interferes with under bench storage? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom King Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 Should work if built stout enough, but with that particular design, and the length of the vise handle, it would probably disassemble itself after a while unless the user was very careful with vise pressure. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pghmyn Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 If tolerances were kept pretty good with distance between brace and top slab, that seems like it would work really well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ponderingturtle Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 As the vise tries to rack it will push the brace into the the the top. How well it works would depend on how well the brace bites into the top. My first thought was to put a skateboard wheel on the end of the brace but on further thought that would be counterproductive. Could be the concept doesn't work well and that's why it was never adopted, or it could work well and was just so obscure that it never caught on. - sent via Tapatalk Strictly speaking it doesn't. You could have a slide there and it would work. What matters is how strong the joint between the brace and the chop is. It will have to deal with quite a lot of torque as there is a nice moment arm on it. Other than that it is just the rigidity of the parts and that the area the brace rides on is flat and perpendicular to the leg face. Though I guess having a good bite would reduce the torque on the joint between the chop and the brace. Edit; Looking more closely I missed the braces parallel to the screw with that bite would be trivial at best. Wheels wouldn't hurt it at all. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim DaddyO Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 This thing is all over the place now. It is a clever design. The brace does not need to grip the underside of the top at all. It is only providing resistance to the bottom of the chop moving in by wedging between it and the bottom of the top. The only thing going against it is that you lose the use of the edge of the chop to clamp very wide stock (like a door). Still clever though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChetlovesMer Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 Jim is correct. There's no need for "grip". The tolerances don't even need to be that tight. Just error slightly to the side of the top of the chop tilting toward the bench. I'm sure that thing will "squeeze" your workpiece plenty hard enough to hold it. I also in a way like the 3 legged design because it should be easy to get equal clamping across the width of the chop. I almost think adopting the design to a wider chop would be kind of cool. The only thing I don't like is what Jim mentions. I would miss the opportunity to stick tall things in the side of the chop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pghmyn Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 Jim is correct. There's no need for "grip". The tolerances don't even need to be that tight. Just error slightly to the side of the top of the chop tilting toward the bench. I'm sure that thing will "squeeze" your workpiece plenty hard enough to hold it. I also in a way like the 3 legged design because it should be easy to get equal clamping across the width of the chop. I almost think adopting the design to a wider chop would be kind of cool. The only thing I don't like is what Jim mentions. I would miss the opportunity to stick tall things in the side of the chop. I guess I should have used a better word than tolerances. Tolerances seems to fit more in terms of 0.001" - but I meant as long as this thing even has maybe 1.0" or so gap between the brace and top, it seems it would work great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChetlovesMer Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 I guess I should have used a better word than tolerances. Tolerances seems to fit more in terms of 0.001" - but I meant as long as this thing even has maybe 1.0" or so gap between the brace and top, it seems it would work great. No problem. I wasn't taking a shot at you. I was just commenting on the vise design. I actually like the design a lot as a low cost easy solution for people who are bothered by the pin. Again, I like to use the side of my leg vise occasionally, so I wouldn't get rid of my criss-cross. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pghmyn Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 No problem. I wasn't taking a shot at you. I was just commenting on the vise design. I actually like the design a lot as a low cost easy solution for people who are bothered by the pin. Again, I like to use the side of my leg vise occasionally, so I wouldn't get rid of my criss-cross. If my bench ever comes to fruition, I can see this being my choice in leg vice design. But that means I would have to stop being an armchair woodworker, and get my shop out of the basement and to my house... I'm not a fan of the pin design, really just seems like too much effort to keep changing it out. But that's my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 What's to stop you from making the chop wider on one edge for side clamping? The triangle brace only needs to clear the leg, so it could be mortised into the face of the chop, away from the outer edge. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick A McQuay Posted November 13, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 I get it now. For some reason I was imagining the braces would need bite to prevent sliding but that isn't an issue since the clamped piece prevents sliding, doh. The braces do reduce clamping area along the length but surely we can engineer around that. There have already been good ideas presented. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soonerdg Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 Just in looking at the design drawing in the OP wouldn't that design defeat the purpose (or at least one purpose) of a leg vise? Isn't a leg vise used for clamping long stock vertically for such tasks as cutting dove tails or some other joinery on the end of the board? The design in the drawing seems more condusive to clamping something horizontally as the bracess would prevent any long stock that was wider than the vises chop to be clamped at all. Said differently on a traditional leg vice you could clamp a wider board by sliding it in the side of the vice and letting part of the work piece stick out past the side of the chop. Used in this fashion racking would not be an issue as the work piece would run most of the lenght of the chop. The design in the OP would not allow for that so that only very narrow boards could be clamped vertically. I beleive this may be why the design was never widely adopted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick A McQuay Posted November 13, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 This was designed for agricultural use. Having grown up on farm, a clamp like that is likely to be used for almost anything. The old farms I've been to rarely use joinery more complex than cleats or nails. There are some exceptions in the construction of barns, latches, and feed troughs. But the vise is clever and uses an interesting principal that might be adaptable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ponderingturtle Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 Just in looking at the design drawing in the OP wouldn't that design defeat the purpose (or at least one purpose) of a leg vise? Isn't a leg vise used for clamping long stock vertically for such tasks as cutting dove tails or some other joinery on the end of the board? The design in the drawing seems more condusive to clamping something horizontally as the bracess would prevent any long stock that was wider than the vises chop to be clamped at all. Said differently on a traditional leg vice you could clamp a wider board by sliding it in the side of the vice and letting part of the work piece stick out past the side of the chop. Used in this fashion racking would not be an issue as the work piece would run most of the lenght of the chop. The design in the OP would not allow for that so that only very narrow boards could be clamped vertically. I beleive this may be why the design was never widely adopted. Aren't there better vices for that though? I would think a shoulder vice would be much better for example, to say nothing about a moxon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimV Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 Seems like it is just a face vice to me. The angled braces would just keep the face from racking top to bottom and the side slides will help prevent the face from racking side to side. Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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