The Bench Vice - Part II

Last week I posted pictures of the vice as I was attempting to blunder my way through the process of getting it mounted. I made a bunch of mistakes, but kept at it anyway. The 2 pieces I made for the jaw faces turned out being too thin, so I surfaced and planed a 2" face for the end of the table. This piece was narrow enough that I just cut places to keep the tops of the bars from hitting. I then took the thicker of the earlier two pieces and used the band saw to change the holes to slots and sanded those down.

Neither piece requires the removal of the vice to install or replace, thank goodness. The piece mounted on the vice face has the top of the slots above the vice top and is a candidate for replacement soon. I still have room to drill 3 dog holes in it, but the is only about ¼" to spare. Not enough backing to place much pressure with the vice. The table side piece is just short of the full table width, which was fine by me. The next step is to create a handle to work the vice. A large screwdriver works, but is a little to tacky even for me.

At this time I laid out a series of three dog holes directly in front of the ones on the vice, at 6", 9" & 9" apart. Two more dog holes will be drilled half way between the front table edge and the first row of dogs and centered between last two holes. I should be able to get those drilled out this weekend and pictures will show more.

I also wanted to add a my magnifying light with a magnetic base to the table. The clamp for the mount only opened up 1.5" so on the right side I chiseled out two boards to the correct depth let me mount the clamp. It was slow going, but satisfying to do this by hand. The lamp is now installed.

Enjoy, and be careful of the splinters.