Hi – I am a relatively new woodworker and to this point have been nearly 100% power tools. I mostly make cabinetry, small tables, boxes, and trays. I have started delving into hand tools, starting with a sharpening station, chisels, and an old block plane and jack plane. I find the hand tools to be a quiet, relaxing way to spend time in the shop. As I try to become more of a hybrid woodworker, I am recognizing a greater need for a work-holding solution. My “bench” has been a plywood top on a 2×4 frame. It has several limitations, as you might imagine. I’d like to build an actual workbench with a vise , dog holes, planing stop, etc, but am not quite sure what I want. In the meantime, the moxon vise seems like a great addition to my shop to allow me to have secure work-holding while I plane, saw, and chisel small parts, building my skill in these areas. I’ve watched a number of YouTube videos on building a moxon vise, leaving me with a few questions:
1) Benchcrafted moxon vise hardware is 4x the cost of some of the other moxon vise hardware kits out there. I know there is a reason for it, but I can’t seem to identify what the main reason(s) is/are. Can this group educate me on the differences and what the downsides are to the $40-50 price point in the vise hardware? I’m familiar with the “buy once, cry once” philosophy.
2) When building the wood jaws for the moxon vise, which wood should I use? Walnut is my favorite species, but most of these I see are either southern yellow pine, cherry, or maple. Would poplar be a good material? What qualities should be prioritized when selecting a species for the jaws? Is a lighter colored wood considered to be more preferable for a practical reason? And should the wood be softer or harder? I have some generic “crubber “ that I plan on using to line the jaws of the vice to mitigate the risk of marring the workpiece.
Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences and insights with me!
Replies
I made one very similar to this (see links in article for hardware):
https://www.finewoodworking.com/2018/03/27/two-diy-woodworking-vises
I don’t use it much anymore but it works well. My only recommendation for modifying would be longer “handles” on the thumbscrews. It’s hard to really tighten it with the thumbscrews. Mine is 6/4 red oak.
Good luck!
Hi B-02,
My bench is maple. I chose that because it is a hard material that I could get locally in upstate NY. My suggestion is to get something that is hard and you can source at a reasonable price. The bench is something that you will use for work, it will get dinged up and stuff will fall on it. I use mine for holding and working things on it. It is not dead flat but I get around that by having an assembly table for glue up. This keeps glue drips and other nasty things off the bench. See other recent threads about leveling up things.
I have two assembly 'tables.' One is from an old door with hard board on both sides. I scrape off old glue periodically and rewax with paste wax when it gets too messy. The other is a smaller sheet of tempered glass that I picked up for $5.
Those assembly tables are stored off the back of the table saw and set on the it for glue up then tucked out of the way when not in use.
To net this out my suggestions are: Don't use soft or pricey wood for your bench. Make up something for assembly that you can use to keep glue off your bench.
I do about the same things you build BTW. Good luck in your current and future projects!
I would use hard maple if it were me,It will stand up to a lot of use and abuse and it has a longer life.I made my bench out of it a long time ago and it has held up well . Hope this helps cheers and good luck with the build.
I've had a similar trajectory as you... started with all power tools to build cabinetry and have steadily incorporated more handtools into my work. When I wanted to learn to cut dovetails, I needed a way to hold boards to work end grain. I built a moxon vise using Benchcrafted's hardware.
A few thoughts...
- A moxon vise really excels are holding boards to allow you to work end grain. I've used it to work edge grain, but my $30 amazon vise does a better job. Are you hand cutting joinery into end grain? If not, you'll find the moxon collecting dust.
- The Benchcrafted hardware is excellent. Its gripping power is huge, and the jaws open and close with a flick of the wrist. It's weird to say, but using the vise is a joy.
- No No No to poplar (or walnut, or cherry). Poplar is too soft. Walnut is too expensive. Cherry is both. You want a wood that is stiff and hard. Consider hard maple or perhaps white oak. There's little risk of marring the wood considering you're clamping the faces. And when you buy the Benchcrafted kit, it comes with crubber ;-)
-John
I built a Moxon a few years ago and used the Benchcrafted kit. I can't compare it to other options but it works great. The heavy wheels and the nicely machined threads allow quick adjusting. I used Maple for the jaws because, depending on how wide you make the vice, you don't want the jaws to deflect under pressure. I also lined one jaw with crubber. I added a flush mounted top surface "shelf" to support the work piece and/or hold some tools.
It was a great addition to my shop.
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The benchcrafted hardware is superb. There is really no question that it's superior. The handwheels almost turn by themselves. Whether or not they are worth the extra cost is up to you and your pocketbook.
Wood choice can depend on the length of your vice. A 24 inch vise needs stiffer jaws than a 12 inch. But using thick jaws mitigates most of that. I personally wouldn't use poplar, mostly because I find it hideous. Personal choice. Pretty much anything aside from the very lightweight woods, such as eastern white pine, would be fine. It doesn't take much wood, so cost differences aren't too big a deal.i used maple because I had some on hand.
I bought my hardware from McMaster Carr.
I suggest you build one from cheaper hardware, like me, it could turn out to collect dust, as I have a shoulder vise on my bench.
+1 for the McMaster Carr approach. I built mine of ash and beech, 6" high, 20" between the screws. Pics below, last image has hardware order. I only use the dog holes for stops since I added the holdown collar which I use constantly for chopping and planing.
Front chop hangs low to register against the bench for clamping in place. Dowel holes to hang scraps to keep jaws parallel on smaller items, mahogany inset is a visual level. Plenty of extra thread to trot out if working on something like an assembled drawer box. Handles were annoyingly long so I cut them off.
An option to consider is two 12" pipe clamps for your first moxon vise. That was my route for a few years until I build a full size bench with 8/4 maple.
Maple is usually easy to source at most true lumber yards and both Rockler and Woodcraft stores here carry it.
My version 2 moxon vise now has the Benchcrafted hardware.
A while back I did up plans for a fellow who made a small Moxon-style vise using a dumbbell handle cut in half for the screws. The "wheels" came with the handle for less that $8 at one of the large stores that sell everything. I haven't built one yet but he said it works quite well. He puts the wheels to the rear so they aren't in the way on the front. Not as much capacity as some but adequate for smaller projects.
Thanks everyone for the excellent feedback! I really appreciate it!
I made a moxon vise using southern yellow pine. I don't think the wood species matters. It's a vise, not Sheridan furniture. Use whatever scrap wood you have. My hardware was a barbell cut in half with the cut end embedded in the back part of the vise. I turned two disks and epoxied the chrome nuts into them to make a bigger tightening nut.
Here is a video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-c3YEkv5Go You can find a barbell online or go the a pawn shop or resale store. The Acme threads on the barbell work great.
I spent maybe $25 on mine instead of $175 for Bench Crafted hardware. You could beat this if you find a barbell on the cheap.
I built mine using McMaster Carr hardware as well. If you go this route I would recommend getting a handwheel with a handle. I glued up 2" thick jaws using plywood and am very happy with it.
You can build a very nice economical Moxon Vice using plywood and pipe clamps.
Check out Mike Farrington's build for a Moxon.
I made theframe out of poplar and douglas fir for the solid round handles. Hardware was 3/4 inch threaded rod. All parts were leftovers from other projects. The Moxon is a real help for dovetails.
I used the very economical and functional Moxon Vise Hardware Kit from Taylor Tools (https://taytools.com) and am quite pleased.
Just prior to that, I had finished my split-top Roubo bench using Benchcrafted's hardware and plans. That bench is a joy to work with every day, and I attribute much of it its beauty and superb functionality to the design and quality of Benchcrafted's hardware. Despite that, it seemed to me that with the Moxon's simple design and straight forward function, a fine Moxon could be crafted from sturdy hardware much less expensive than Benchcrafted's. The above mentioned kit costs $40.
I used ash left over from the Roubo build and gave it a little elegance by incorporating the lamb's tongues on the 45º face as so nicely described by Luke Addington at https://imgur.com/a/AdOXB.
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