This is going to be a little picture heavy Kevin but this is one I built to do work on muzzleloader stocks. After using on stocks for a while, I started using it on all kinds of wood including hawk/hatchet/ax/knife handles.
It has undergone a lot of changes but the vise/jaw arrangement is still the same.
I designed it to have a swivel jaw for irregular shapes.
It started life as a 9.00 HF vise. I cut the fixed jaw off and mounted a piece of 1/4" angle iron on the anvil. One bolt holds it so it swivels. On the other jaw, I mounted a flat 1/4" plate to match.
You can see the arrangement here after some use and tuning.
I then mounted the thing on a tilt arm attached to a salvaged band saw top. This allowed me to have a tilt adjustment as well as rotation.
After using it for a long time, I decided I wanted global adjustments. I took a piece of PVC sewer pipe and a Yard sale bowling ball. I cut a flat on the top of the ball and epoxied threaded steel inserts in to match the mounting holes on the vise. I then cut another piece of the sewer pipe, slit it lengthwise, bolted two angle irons on the slits, drilled a hole in each angle iron and put a piece of curved allthread in. I bolted one end of the all thread and tapped an old adjustment wheel for the other. This allowed me to tightly clamp the bowling ball in place while sitting on the first piece of pipe.
I filled the first piece of pipe with concrete for ballast.
This worked like a dream...but....you guessed it, I wanted more support for some items so I made two adjustable, removable arms that would pivot to follow the work in the jaws. I made two U holders from the tool hanging brackets sold at lumber and hardware stores.
This has worked perfectly for a long time now and I have made a number of adapters for the arms to support and hold different items.
Cost...less than $20.00 total (I scrounge a lot)
