Made a knife vise

M

Mike Fennessy

Joined
Dec 19, 2005
Messages
326
I had woken up at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep so I decided to stumble out to the shop. I had a handle to finish but didn't feel like working on that so I made this instead, figuring that making this was kinda like working on the handle. It went together much easier than I thought it would. I had it painted and together by 8:00.

Wasn't quite sure how it was going to work out but I thought I'd just start cutting and figure it out as I went.

I didn't know how the vise itself worked from other pictures I had seen but it's really straight forward. I cut the bottom piece to just fit below the center of the pipe and wedged it in. The top piece is a little narrower. Then I lined them both with leather (I also wrap the blade in paper towel). The bolt just pushes the top piece of metal into the bottom piece of metal locking down whatever is between them. Works very slick.

If I were to do it again, I'd keep the handles far enough apart so that they couldn't interfere with each other no matter how the vise is rotated (or use knobs, like Tracy's). Very, very small annoyance but I would bother to do it if I were making another one.

I've only done a couple knives since I made this but it's made a very big difference in how my handles turn out.

Tracy has them for sale here:
http://usaknifemaker.com/metal-working-tools-and-supplies-c-44/knife-vise-tab-base.html
Looks like he bolts the bottom plate down. I just let the pressure keep it in place. I guess with his you couldn't lose the bottom plate.

2012-09-17064855.jpg
 
Very cool. I've only finished one knife, but while I was sanding the handle it became immediately apparent how handy one of these vises would be.
 
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I've seen them with an adjustable angle clamp on the end, as the ability to stand the knife vertically (or any angle between vertical and horizontal) is an additional bonus.
 
I got the one from Texas Knifemakers and its good as well except the rubber handles w/ brass threaded inserts to tighten are garbage, the plastic slips on the brass and it wont even hold up it's own weight. Yours with metal handles is far better. Looks very nice!
 
Thanks everyone. The paint helps it look professional, the welding under the paint isn't very impressive :)

I should have mentioned that that is a piece of angle iron welded to the bottom. It's much more simple to make it that way and put it in a vice where you can change the angle then to engineer some sort of rotating base.

I really didn't mind holding it in my hand when sanding the handle, but it always was tricky to sand near the front of the handle without hitting the blade with the sandpaper. I would use my thumb to stop my hand from moving too far forward but it was clunky. This way it's more controlled. I can also use both hands to use a sanding stick or better yet, a flexible steel ruler wrapped in sand paper.

I use it to put on my maker's mark also.
 
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