Leg Vise Parallel Guide Pins

2010.04.04

The parallel guides attached to the vise chops have a series of holes.  A pin can be placed through one of these holes, and then the screw is tightened against the workpiece.  At the parallel guide, the pin — running perpendicular to the screw — pushes against the leg, preventing the parallel guide from going any further into the mortise.  This minimizes racking of the vise chop.

How the parallel guide works

The holes I drilled were 3/8″ diameter, so I bought a 3/8″ steel rod from the home center for the pins.  I cut off the appropriate length with a hacksaw, and then chamfered the leading edge with a coarse file.

Using hacksaw to cut off a section of steel bar for parallel guide pin
End of parallel guide pin chamfered with file

Tapered Octagonal Handle

Handles for chisels and such are usually made from a dense hardwood like hickory, beech, and oak.  I decided to try making these from a leftover scrap of old-growth douglas fir.  After the fact, I would not recommend it; although I ended up with two workable handles.

I started with a rectangular blank, and drilled a hole in one end to accept the steel pin.  I was concerned about making the hole too snug and splitting the wood, so I drilled a 25/64″ hole.  I was surprised how loose the fit was with a mere extra 1/64″ of room.  There was no driving with a mallet or anything like that, the steel rod just dropped right in.

I then began sawing the blank to create a tapered handle.  When my brass-backed tenon saw bottomed out, I switched to an old Disston crosscut saw.

Blank for parallel guide pin handle before drilling hole
Sawing tapered edges for parallel guide pin handle

I put the chamfer attachment on my block plane and clamped it upside down in one of the vises.  Then I ran the handle over the plane to chamfer the edges.  I could have made larger chamfers to more closely approximate an octagon shape.

Then I used epoxy to glue the steel pin in place.  You can see in the photo that the hole did not end up being parallel with the handle.  Oh well.

Chamfering corners on parallel guide pin handle
Epoxying steel pin in handle

2010.04.24

While working on the second handle, a large chunk split along one of the corners.  I epoxied it back in place and was able to complete the handle another day.  I think this is the main drawback to using something like douglas-fir.  In the end, it’s not all that noticeable.

Parallel guide handle in progress, after using epoxy to reattach split chunk
Parallel guide pins