Homemade carpentry vise: 2 vise options, 2 quick clamp designs and a hand vise device
When there is a carpentry workbench, then a vise is definitely needed for it. You can buy a vice, or you can make your own.
Next, I propose to look at two options that I did for my workbench. In addition, there will be two more designs of quick clamps for homemade vise.
Homemade vise
The first version of homemade vise is very easy to manufacture.
In this vice, almost all parts are wooden, only a threaded stud, a nut for it and several self-tapping screws are used from metal.
The threaded stud is glued into a block of wood with glued plywood circles. The outer circle is larger and deepens into the movable vise jaws. All this is fixed with two overlays of their plywood.
A simple design, simple to manufacture and performs its function of reliable fastening of parts in a workbench.
But in this design, due to the inevitable play in the guides, skew easily occurs when the part is clamped from only one edge of the vise.
Therefore, I decided to make another, more complex version in my workbench, with a good parallel movement of the moving part of the vise.
In this design, the guides are made of a metal tube and are rigidly fixed to a wooden block, which moves between two bars and this ensures parallel movement of the guides and, accordingly, the movable vice parts.
A threaded stud was also used as a vice screw, but already by 20 mm. and the screw assembly turned out like this.
The nut and the tee on the stud were fixed with cuttings of nails through the holes drilled in them.
During assembly, the screw was twisted so that the nut was recessed in the movable jaw of the vise, then the washer was screwed to secure the screw, and then the tee was twisted.
I also used a long nut for this screw.
Details of the manufacture and installation of such a vise can be viewed in the video clip.
Fast clamping mechanisms
A vise that has the ability to quickly move the moving part and then clamp the part with a small turn of the screw is more convenient to use.
Of course, such quick-clamping vices are on sale, but they are also twice as expensive as usual ones.
Of course, lovers of doing it with their own hands did not bypass such a chip. And then I propose to look at two solutions to this problem.
This half nut design here allows you to quickly move the vise screw and then tighten it.
This mechanism works by turning the screw: when unscrewing, the half of the threaded nut moves away from the screw, and when tightening, the thread is pressed into the screw and starts working in the usual way.
In more detail, the device and the operation of this mechanism can be seen in the video of the author of this device.
Another version of the quick clamping mechanism works differently: the half of the threaded nut is brought to the vise screw using an additional handle.
With the use of such quick clamping mechanisms, the fine thread pitch of the screw is no longer of great importance.
Hand carpentry vice
This is a simple and versatile option.
They can be made in a variety of sizes and are suitable for many situations: gluing, assembling, securing parts.
The clamp device is very simple.
The screw on the right in the diagram works in compression, and the screw on the left, on the contrary, decompresses. It turns out that the part is clamped with the first screw, and the second one is pressed like a lever.
To make it more convenient to work with such clamps, the holes for the threaded studs must be made of a larger diameter than the stud.
Setting the jaws of these clamps to the desired size is done by rotating the two handles at the same time, as if pedaling on a bicycle.
The rectangular shape of the bars in these clamps is convenient in that it is easy to fix it with another clamp to any flat surface, such as a workbench.
Of course, you can buy vise and clamps, but if you like to do it yourself, then why not do it.
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Alexander.
P.S. I also invite you to your website.