My Moxon Vise

[Bob Gleason]

For the past month or so there has been a thread on the OLF about Moxon vices. I have wanted one of these for a very long time. Finally, partly because of the OLF thread and partly because I visited a friend recently who also had one, I decided I'd better get off my behind and make one. Took me a few weeks to get the parts. I wanted the new style of pipe clamp made by Irwin and I had to get that from Amazon. The handle end slips on and off rather than being threaded on like the typical pipe clamp. I finally got the parts together a few days ago. It looked like a good 2 hour project and 5 or 6 hours later, I almost was finished. Any tool you can make in 2 hours is probably not worth having ayway!. This vice will securely hold most any size of guitar, uke, or whatever. You can tailor the dimensions to any size you might need. I can only imagine what one made for full size upright basses might look like! The vice faces have a 12 foot radius to allow safe clamping. Most of these that I have seen are permanently mounted to a bench. I made this one attached to an 8/4 board that could be moved around and clamped in any vise.I already love it. It's going to great for scaping binding, among other things. Probably cost me about $35.00 to make. Not as pretty as the upscale twin screw cabinet maker's vice, but works just as good for guitars. Happy holidays!--Bob

[Diane Kauffmds]

Very nice,! I have a similar vise that I use constantly.

[ruby@magpage.com]

Bob

Looks good - I have never seen that style of clamp. How did you get the bend into the flexible jaws? If you increase the thickness of the small strips at the ends of those flexible jaws you won't stand a chance of their bottoming out in the center. The strips look like 1/2" right now, and increasing them to 3/4" or 7/8" would do the trick.

[Bob Gleason]

The curved jaw faces are just 1/4" plywood, so they can be bent easily by screwing them down to the backing in the middle and the shimmed ends provide the curve. I wanted the ply to bottom out so that it was solid, not flexible. Once screwed down, the 1/4" ply is solid. I wanted a curve that was just a little more than a 12' radius . Height of shims depends on the width of your jaws and what raduius you want. Could be calculated mathematically, but I just used a radius template. I faced the jaws with cork.

[Morecowbell]

Very nice! I love these simple solutions

[ruby@magpage.com]

Bob

I think am the OP of that thread and mine has 1/8" plywood faces with a terry cloth towel facing, They bend easily to conform to the shape of a back or top of any diameter. The two 3/4 X 3/4 pieces are spaced 15" apart so they hold near the edges of the rim