Sliding Vise Circular Mortise

Shallow Mortise for Vise Garter in Vise Chop

2010.01.18

Back when I went to Brian’s house and used his drill press, I ran out of time before I finished mortising the vise chops for the vise garters.  I used a wing cutter to define the outer rim, but the middle still needed to be drilled down.

Today I used a plywood guide (which I’d already created for the bushings) to help keep the sawtooth forstner bit from wandering all over the place.  I drilled down approximately 1/4″, then repositioned the guide with some overlap and drilled again, making my way around the circle.

Vise chop with vise garter mortise outline defined
Creating shallow mortise in vise chop for vise garter

The bottom was uneven of course.  I realized that my random orbit sander would fit in the recess with just a little room to oscillate.  So I used that to make the bottom of the mortise reasonably level and closer to 1/4″ deep.

Creating shallow mortise in vise chop for vise garter
Smoothing bottom of vise garter mortise with random orbit sander