At their top, leg vises either have wooden or a metal screw and are pretty much the same. Below, leg vises have literally dozens of variations of a mechanism to keep the chop from tilting under load.
This post will describe a leg vise that I used as a teenager when I was heavily into repair of autos, trucks, and tractors. I grew up on a subsistence farm in the Capital district of NY and my brother lives on that farm today. I used this vise (without paying any heed to its construction) to hold generators, starters, and many other items for repair. I was not at all into woodworking then. The age of this vise is probably North of 90 years. I asked my brother for some pictures and I was surprised by the cleverness of the design.
The screw is an ordinary Acme vise screw with a crude eye-bolt tommy bar. The mechanism to keep the chop from tilting is a triangular bracing that keeps the chop from tilting by pressing against the bottom of the benchtop and bearing on the slots in the apron. The short horizontal piece fastened to the guide rail serves as an out-travel stop.
This vise was designed for a bench with a heavy front apron. I prefer benches where the front legs are flush with the benchtop (no apron). Thinking about this design has gotten my mind churning about adapting the triangular bracing scheme to a Ruobo style workbench using maybe a couple of ball bearings. Another topic to think through on my morning walks.
This post will describe a leg vise that I used as a teenager when I was heavily into repair of autos, trucks, and tractors. I grew up on a subsistence farm in the Capital district of NY and my brother lives on that farm today. I used this vise (without paying any heed to its construction) to hold generators, starters, and many other items for repair. I was not at all into woodworking then. The age of this vise is probably North of 90 years. I asked my brother for some pictures and I was surprised by the cleverness of the design.
The screw is an ordinary Acme vise screw with a crude eye-bolt tommy bar. The mechanism to keep the chop from tilting is a triangular bracing that keeps the chop from tilting by pressing against the bottom of the benchtop and bearing on the slots in the apron. The short horizontal piece fastened to the guide rail serves as an out-travel stop.
This vise was designed for a bench with a heavy front apron. I prefer benches where the front legs are flush with the benchtop (no apron). Thinking about this design has gotten my mind churning about adapting the triangular bracing scheme to a Ruobo style workbench using maybe a couple of ball bearings. Another topic to think through on my morning walks.
