'Moxon' add-on vices

[jimi43]

Anyone interested in wooden threads should watch this superb video by Stephen Fry about the Gutenberg Press...

PART ONE HERE

You get links to all three parts on the first DM page.

Cheers

Jim

 

[Chop]

When we bought our pair of narrowboats there was already the top of an old workmate mounted on one of the benches in the butty's workshop

The workmate can be seen on the left, these pics were taken before I installed my Hobbies treadle lathe by building it into the right-hand bench

Edited to fix images

 

[rileytoolworks]

Douglas, these vice are all excellent my friend.
Consider a few of the details stolen :wink:

All the best.
Adam.

 

[AndyT]

Is it too late to suggest doing it like this?

These are actually of an eighteenth century wine press in southern France - I could claim them as an example of what can be done at one end of the scale - even chunkier than the printing press screw - but really I've just been waiting for an excuse to share them! ;-) I'd guess at about 4" per thread.

 

[condeesteso]

That's an amazing screw Andy - I imagine it was hand-cut too. I was thinking of something a bit smaller.
Adam - I wonder if Riley Toolworks may be persuaded to go into production on either the tools to make 1 1/2" 3 maybe 4 tpi screws and nuts, or just go all the way and produce the screws and nuts finished, sold as pairs maybe. Someone needs to do this

 

[The Wood Butcher]

I just finished making mine today using the Benchcrafted hardware and some hard maple, I'll put up pics if anyone is interested.

 

[James C]

I just finished making mine today using the Benchcrafted hardware and some hard maple, I'll put up pics if anyone is interested.

I'd definitely would like to see the results of Benchcrafted hardware.

How was it getting the hardware imported to the UK?

 

[condeesteso]

me too re the Benchcrafted - the maple should be very good too. Pics etc please.

 

[The Wood Butcher]

Here you go. Importing the hardware was no problem, just had to give the Revenue an excessive cut...

Suffice to say it will be used on a normal bench rather than on the MFT, although it works okay on it, it's just not stable enough.

 

[condeesteso]

The BenchCrafted components look really good here - rock solid I suspect, and nicely dull and engineering-like (I have seen some BenchCrafted looking a bit shiny for my tastes). And your maple faces etc Butcher also very nice - I did mine in ash (just lying around) but I am inclined to regard these things as 'users' - I mean they will get damaged etc over time.... so take care (sure you will!).
One thing I found through use was making them smaller. My first were about (I think) 14" between centres, and later I dropped that to about 10" - as I use it for small components this worked better for me. Really excellent things though, I'm still using mine a lot (currently making another box... they are great at that scale I find).

p.s. and Jim's link to the S Fry vids is really well worth a look, well found Sputnik

 

[Fromey]

A little birdy told me there might be a UK source of this type of hardware some time soon. I, for one, have my fingers crossed.

 

[AndyT]

Just to add an example to this long and interesting thread... I recently made a fairly quick and rough box out of some reclaimed parana pine I had been given. It was a good excuse to do some dovetailing:

so I was able to use my Moxon vice to pare in between the pins:

not a very well-posed shot but it should show that the broad level surfaces make a jig for the blade. This shows it a bit better:

Parana, like other softwoods, is both tough and soft, so you need very sharp tools and a light cut. In this shot you can see some rough areas - that's just me; but even so they were a lot tidier than in my earlier attempt, where I had tried chopping down onto the bench in the conventional way.

What matters just as much is that the working position is much more comfortable - at my age I have to be careful not to bend over in one position for too long.

Another nice aspect of this particular job was that I found a nice quick way to saw off the waste between the pins and tails - using my foot-powered fret saw:

I could go really quite close to the line and complete a cut quickly. To angle the saw for the end of the cut I just slipped a bit of scrap under the board to tilt it a bit - not something I'd do casually with a motorised saw, but with this you can feel exactly how it is going.

 

[condeesteso]

Very impressive Andy. You now have me interested in the foot-powered fret saw. I generally use a jewellers fret saw to remove most of the waste, but your device looks very good. I am wondering about floor space however, as I seem to be running out of it.
I do agree by the way, the 'Moxon' vices are handy as a top reference face... I also made a really simple Tee-shaped long thing to clamp in that vice, and use as a chopping base. Clamp it in the vice, and chop down at a nicer height (make the top sacrificial, ply, etc). I do find I use mine more than I thought I would (though the current box has something to do with that).