May, 2026
The last piece for the English Joiner's Bench (for now) is to add a vise. I decided to keep on with the Rex Kreuger plans and added the leg vise as-detailed in his plans. I enjoyed this build, used the bench quite a bit during the build, added some holdfast holes, and was only constrained by available time to do the work! Could be done in a weekend. Again I learned that handtools (sawing) sure, but don't shy away from a quick circular saw rip to save an hour.
The main part of the vise (the 'chop') is made up of 3x stair treads laminated together. Nice, flat, straight and they glued up nicely. I used every clamp I own on this one!
A big flaw in my final product is the fact that the apron that the leg vise clamps against is not perfectly flat. I spent a fair bit of time scrubbing it down to make it reasonably "unbowed". Better than when I started, but it still resulted in a noticeable gap between the chop and the workbench. Seems to hold wood well enough though.
Next up, cutting out the shape and angles. I thought I did a 20 degree angle, but it was actually 25. My fault for thinking I had the speed square angle measurement technique down pat.
Now the big honkin' Yost Vise Screw - this is big! I had to cut out some of the brace to get the inside plate flush. A little bit of chisel, but a lot of Mutli Tool cutting - a 10 minute job at most. Some holes measured and drilled, a damn-near-too-much-cut along the top, and it's almost there.
The bottom of the chop gets an angled channel rabbited out to allow for an aligned clamp for various widths of boards. This was a bit of tricky measuring but the cuts were clean.
A 1/2 inch dowel in the bottom to keep the chop from rotating, shave off some of the bulk from the top, chamfer the corners, screw in the last bits of the vise screw, and I have a functioning leg vise.
A few issues - the angled piece of wood at the foot of the leg vise (used to widen or narrow the clamp width) needs a lot of floor room to the left - where I had planned to have the bench up pretty close to the wall. May reposition the bench to accommodate. I somehow made the top angle cut almost too short! I had intended to leave a good bit and then shave it down to level with the bench, somehow I miscalculated badly. Now, the top of the chop is actually a hair below the bench top on the right side. Left side is perfectly flush.
With some initial testing, I don't find it moves very smoothly, and the foot of the vise with the angled wood all seems a bit loosey. I also butchered the top when I was trying to round it off.
All in all a bit disappointing finish, but functionally this should be solid.
