If you don’t own a big twin-screw vise, you’ll find it hard to hold wide workpieces on end, for dovetailing for example. The usual answer is a Moxon vise: a portable twin-screw vise made these days with commercial vise screws. To make one the old-fashioned way, with wood screws, I started with an old wood hand-screw clamp I found at a yard sale.

Each jaw has a threaded hole for one of the screws. To incorporate them in a rear vise jaw, I sanded their sides and glued them between two layers of hardwood. Then I drilled 1-in.-dia. clearance holes in another board and glued that on to complete the rear-jaw assembly. The front jaw is an identical length of hardwood, with the same clearance holes.

My all-wood vise works wonderfully. The rear jaw is easy to clamp to my workbench, and the wood screws offer excellent holding power.

—ROGER HANCK, Montreal, Que., Canada

Illustrations by Dan Thornton
From Fine Woodworking issue #279

Two DIY Woodworking Vises Turn your kitchen table into a workbench with these homemade work-holding wonders

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