An improved leg vise

[derekcohen]

This is an accessory for a leg vise to prevent the chop racking. There are other ways to do this - a deck of playing cards is easier - but I wanted to build it in, and not have to look for an accessory. Your bench may offer the same opportunity.

This is the anti-racking at work ...

How is this done? Alongside the leg is a "depth stop" built from a screw. It can be adjusted for the desired length ...

I designed and built this a few years ago. Rob Lee came to visit, and commented that the design needed extra reinforcement to prevent being bent back. He was correct, and I have now used angle sections to attach it to the leg. Solid as a rock ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[ear3]

Thanks for posting derek. The form factor definitely beats the vise shims!https://www.woodpeck.com/one-time-tools/vise-shims.html

 

[Steened]

cool idea and implementation

 

[ChuckM]

Snip.https://www.woodpeck.com/one-time-tools/vise-shims.html

Seriously? Almost $100 US for...something you can make yourself from scraps?

 

[Svar]

That's a lot of gift and credit cards, Chuck [poke]. Woodpeckers gadget looks cheap by comparison.  [big grin]

 

[ChuckM]

That's a lot of gift and credit cards, Chuck [poke]. Woodpeckers gadget looks cheap by comparison.  [big grin]

I almost cried when you reminded me of how much money my family has spent over the years on Starbucks, Tim Hortons, and other woodworking merchant cards (and hotels). :'(

 

[RussellS]

Snip.https://www.woodpeck.com/one-time-tools/vise-shims.html

Seriously? Almost $100 US for...something you can make yourself from scraps?

Its very obvious your way too simple and cheap and easy shim system is very defective.  Credit cards have raised numbers on the face.  Few hundreds of an inch tall.  Add all these up in a whole stack of cards, some on the left, some on the right, some forward, some backward, etc., and you could get a stack of cards that is a few hundredths of an inch out of parallel.  Then what would you do?  Your vise would not be parallel!  My Gosh!  You'd have to just turn out the lights, retire to the living room, turn on the TV, open a soda, eat ice cream, and contemplate the meaning of man in the vast universe.

 

[ChuckM]

You're right, don't use credit cards to make the spacers (though in practice, the variations in the stack won't really matter). All my anti-racking spacers (4 or 5 of them) are made of gift cards or merchant cards (hotel access cards, e.g.) which are uniformly flat, unlike credit cards.

My solution is better than the commercial version because each card is thin, allowing for better matching of the workpiece's thickness.