Moxon vise v0

A Moxon vise, or twin screw vise, is extremely useful. I'm not sure where in the rabbit warren I first saw it, but of course Chris Schwarz has an article about it.

I had a bunch of hard maple laying around (this is a theme) from the aborted first attempt at filling the tool well on my borrowed workbench. I decided to cut this down and use it for a Moxon vise.

I use this vise all the time, and love it. My only complaint is I have to move it around a bunch, and it's not - by design - particularly light. Someday it might have a permanent home on a workbench I want to build, but until then, it's a critical tool in my workflow.

I got the hardware from Benchcrafted. I had plans from various places, and had an image in my head that I mostly executed on.

You can see that the work holding for long pieces is pretty ad hoc. It's functional, but fraught. Those are hand screw clamps, clamped onto the bench with other squeeze clamps. It does work surprisingly well, but something better can be done.

I decided I want the front jaw of the vise to be maple and walnut, with a big bevel. The back jaw would be maple attached to a table of some sort. I ended up gluing some red oak to the top just because I needed another 1/4" - but I really wish I hadn't. It just looks bad, and the red oak gets messy.

The general shape of the thing becomes evident pretty quickly.

This was the first time I'd ever made a bevel, with a no5 no less, and I think it came out pretty well. It blended the maple and walnut just like I had it in my head.

Laying out the cuts on the back, and just putting the hardware on the front definitely made it feel like progress at this point.

This was my first time really making mortises - let alone hex holes - and it was very fraught and was only mostly successful. The left screw doesn't quite sit right, and the nut has to periodically be tightened. Someday I'll fix it.

Getting it all mounted up and spinning the wheels for the first time was a great feeling.

(That corner chisel was definitely not something I would buy again.)

Getting the back jaw attached to the table involved using some Dubque universal clamps (great!) and my new Veritas shooting board (also great!) Them just gluing it all up and truing it a bit.

The table legs need to be trimmed a bit, or wedged, depending, but it doesn't impact operation at all.

At some point I'm going to cut the table off and re-do it. It needs to be deeper, with feet not the back for attaching holdfast or other clamps to. And that red oak has gotta go.