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Here are some pics of my repair vice in my home shop and I wanted to start this thread to highlight just how wonderful these vices are and why. We also use them in our business shop and have four of them available.

We have the usual suspect vices that folks often buy for guitar building and repair and we won't use them because the vices pictured are way better IME in a number of important respects.

First this is a vice that you can make yourself for very little coin if you already have a bench screw AND if we all remember our friend the Padma he even made his own bench screws.

Next the vice will not let the instrument's neck fall though into the vice mechanism as the other most common repair vice will without modification.

The real trick of this vice is that it's very easy to use and very fast too to clamp an ax in here and go at it. With electrics such as Fenders I often clamp a body horn in the vice with the guitar back toward me to insert the strings. Very useful and easy.

Although it's made of 2 X 4's the 2 X 4's flex a bit if you attempt to tighten something in the vice too tight and that can avoid damage.

We beat on our, close the jaws and use them with the leather to file our nuts.... and saddles as well.

Dave has installed a transducer in his that is wired to his bench tuner so he can use the vice to tune an instrument.

The stacked 2 X 4's that you see on my home vice are very useful for all manner of things since it's a very stable platform. I often put my drill on mine when restringing or just squirt CA on there to see if the tip is unclogged.

The bench screw that you see pictured is way bigger than necessary but it's what I could find so I used it. Bench screws half this size are what we use in the Ann Arbor shop.

In terms of attribution we don't know who came up with these first. We do know that the Gallup School of Lutherie either has these or certainly had them in the past and we also know that Dan E. used these at one time too. If I knew who came up with the idea I would provide attribution as always.

Anyway it's an alternative and since we clamp over 1,100 instruments annually into our 4 vices like this AND have the alternatives but don't use them I though that some OLFers might like to make one for themselves....

Pictured on my home vice is a bit of a personal joke but I'll share.... For 25 years I traveled the world for corporate America and hated every minute of it. I actually got into guitar building as I developed hypertension and my Doc suggested a hobby....

For me becoming a professional Luthier was very much an exit from the bump and grind, airports, hotels, meetings, and all of the associated stress AND inability to have much of a personal or family life....

So.... when I built my vice and needed some quality leather to line the jaws with my well used Coach briefcase started getting paranoid as over the course of a week I kept thinking about cutting the sucker up as both a ceremonial act AND to canabilize the thick leather for my vice and other repair jigs. In the words to the great Mick Jagger "so I did..." and even included one of the pockets that's perfect for holding repair tickets for what ever instrument is currently clamped into the thing.

If anyone has any questions or wants to build one yourself I'm happy to help as always. Also the guys who are coming to our Fretting class next month and next year will be using these too and I greatly suspect that everyone of them will be building their own when they get back home.

That looks like a good idea Hesh, I like that. I've used a Parrot Vise for some years now - was too mean to pay to import a SW repair vice, but have just received and mounted the Dictum one on a block to fit in my bench's end vice.
I use sponges to stop the neck falling into the mechanism on both.

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Hesh

I think these are a great idea. My daughter went to the old Gibson factory in Kalamazoo and found that Heritage is still using a bunch of these left over from Gibson. I made her a bench with one that has a little adjustable support for the neck instead of the leather sling. Turns out she took it off the bench in favor of a parrot and a standard S-M vise, but it is mounted on a side bench and gets some, but not regular use. I used a pipe clamp instead of a press screw:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/10268532993/in/album-72157636540926993/

Ed

Very cool Ed!!! I like the mods that you did as well.

We knew that Heritage was using the tooling and vices left in the old Parson's street G*bson f*ctory and you know that's likely where some of the guys we know got the idea in this part of the country.

I'm usually on the other side of these discussions of make vs. buy but in this case IMO these vices are better suited for what we do than anything commercially available AND can be less expensive as well.

Thanks for posting the pics Ed, very much appreciated!

For those of us who already own the pattern maker's vise, I bet we can add a leather sling without too much effort. Thanks for the idea! I've been thinking about replacing the wooden jaws on mine, anyway. They are a bit beat up.

Right you are Don and somewhere in the OLF files are pics of folks who added a leather strap or sling to their pattern maker's vice.

Many of you guys come at Luthierie from woodworking and will have lots of other uses for a nice pattern maker's vice. For us though in the repair side of the trade and even for me when I was a builder the vices shown in this thread are great and even more versatile for what we do.

It's always good to have choices!

Hesh I/ve seen different versions of this vise used by other woodworkers . The screws look like my shoulder vise from woodcraft. I like the DIY look using 2 by 4

Nice variation on the traditional leg vice. It looks simpler to make and more suited to guitar work.
Using a pipe clamp instead of the more expensive press screw (as Ed has done) might also have the advantage of making it a "quick acting" vise. Making it easily removable or (as a light duty vice) making the portion sticking above the bench swivel 90 degrees to clear the edge might be a nice feature, but would add a little more work to it's construction. With enough over thinking it would be possible to complicate it's construction and reduce it's reliability.

Hesh

Interesting thought about this vise being parochial. I know that Brian Galloup uses then in his school. You can see one here:

http://www.galloupguitars.com/video-of- ... guitar.htm

Anybody else in the area use one - Chicago to Cleveland maybe??

I made this one so that 2 long carriage bolts with wingnuts takes it off the side and with additional holes drilled through the 2 holes in the legs it would fit on any side of any bench in the shop

Ed

The biggest draw back with this vise vs a pattern maker or even parrot vise is that it's stationary in that you can't rotate it. And the parrot vise can rotate and swivel about the horizontal plane.

I like to be able to clamp whatever I'm working on and be able to rotate the vise to get at the piece from different angles.

For your repair purposes I'm sure this is a great vise but to say these are way better??
Adding some leather on a pattern marker vise is as simple as can be.

Probably a perfect vise for repair work but limited for sure.


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Dedicated man purse also. Nice touch. haha

Just before you posted this Hesh, I finally ponied up for a second patternmakers vice from stew mac. Out of stock for at least a month.
I love mine. The only complaints I have are that I don't have 4 set up around the shop in various orientations and heights, they are a pain to move around, and they are expensive.
I have thought of building a couple of leg vices like yours a few times but I'm kind of w/ Rod. might work well for standard set up stuff every day but pretty limiting for the repair work I do. I can think of a half dozen things right off the top of my head that would be troublesome w/ just a leg vice.

Is it just the slop or flex that accommodates neck taper? Or is there an angle on the legs somewhere?

One of the virtues of the pattetnmaker's vise is that I can remove it from my bench if I need the space for some particular task.

Dave, you can always go the generic route on the pattern makers vise and save a bunch of coin.

http://www.japanwoodworker.com/Product/ ... -Vise.aspx

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Thanks Rod. I've used the generic ones. Nothing wrong with that. what I like is The urethane on the jaws of the stew mac. That stuff is the bomb.
I know I could find out the hardness of that stuff and order a sheet from MSC or someone. I just figured by the time I got it and glued it on, I would have made more money doing a repair in that time. The Nylon nuts are nice too.

The Japan woodworker vise has urethane on the jaws too.

I just used removable Loctite on the head bolts for mine, got them where I want them and they've not moved since.

Also, by adding leather to the heads you don't need the urethane.... just a few thoughts.

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

I didn't know the Japan woodworker version had urethane. Thanks again.

I'm not a knee jerk Stew mac buyer but I have their shipping free program so in this particular case I think it's still a better deal for me.
I can't overstate how well stew mac's new free shipping buy in works for my one man shop. They make and sell some goofy stuff, but when they get it right I appreciate it.

I have a month to wait so I'm interested in others vice/clamping set ups.

It's both the flex and the angle and the angle is not critical within the working range. The jaws are also critical to having these vices work well as well and if you look at the subtile shapes on the one in my pics you may see what I mean. We don't want any hard edges, more on this in a minute... and instead don't want the instrument to pop up out of the vice either.

One of the other advantages of what we use at least to us is this. We are heavily insured with two policies and it's important to us to do all that we can to provide real value to our clients AND never, never, never damage anything in our charge. Do you know that insurance is available against stupid things such as knocking a client guitar off a bench? Well it most certainly is and we have it!

With this said the point is that it's very important to us to protect the valuable personal property of others in our charge, the bailment thing if you will.

Pattern makers vices need to be removable from the bench because they have lots of very hard, often sharp edged metal that protrudes above the top of the bench surface. They also are not ideally suited to clamp every single instrument into that you may have to work on. What we use does exactly that and everything we do is clamped in one of these vices and they don't suck any valuable bench top surface either. Believe it or not simple can be good too.... We can also lay a guitar in the vice and not clamp it and the vice will prevent it from being bumped off a bench because of the V shape of the uprights.

Stuff happens.... an understatement and instruments may get bumped or fall when we are working on them. Not having anything in the prospective path of either an improperly handled instrument or an instrument that comes loose from the vice because maybe we have an arm in the sound hole and are pumping a crack open and closed... is useful and important.

As such in the last eight years or so between Dave and I we have had thousands of guitars and other instruments in our vices and only once did we ever experience any damage and that was when we returned an old vice to service for increased volume and the jaws had worn to a point where they needed to be replaced or they might, if clamped too tight, leave an impression on a neck.

These are not intend to be 50 shades of gray vices that can orientate an instrument in all manner of positions... Instead they are very much a staple of a working repair person's vice and pretty excellent too for even simple things such as set-ups. They are also not intended to be woodworking vices, this is a Luthierie forum and believe it or not you may have to solder a wire some day and not just use that nice new LM plane while working wood. By the way we can plane things in these vices too but that's not their intended strong suit.

Anyway it's an alternative and an alternative that some working Luthiers appreciate and use. The cost can be pretty minimal, the space required minimal as well and they do not have to be removed from the area to avoid whacking a nice Martin on a piece of cast metal.

I saw that one coming when I posted the pic yesterday....

We call it a "man bag" in the states. I know you guys have a different meaning for the word "bag" in Canada too....

I think one of the principal virtues of the vise Hesh has shown us is the low cost and simple construction. Although I will admit to succumbing to TAS on more than one occasion, I do think there are people who weigh the cost of a tool against the use they will make of it. Even with limited use the vise will "pay" for it's small cost.

We have TAS too and are no strangers to Starrett and the world's most expensive saddle mill. I'll second the love of fine tools and I get that completely.

My point is though that at any expense we would use these vices. Again we even have pattern maker's vices but for guitar repair work, any kind of guitar repair work you need a generic vice with the most functionality and flexibility possible that also will not damage the work. So we like these at any price.

I've asked a friend of mine who knows something about woodworking, an understatement.... since he was a personal friend of Jim Krenov and who is currently in the process of making one of these vices to weigh in on the virtues as he sees it. We know that he really likes the vices or he would not be making one for his own Lutherie shop.

I also received more information and we think that Ed is correct that G*bson in Kalamazoo, MI likely is responsible for the proliferation in the Lutherie world of these vices. Although the dog leg vice has been around for hundreds of years this is a variation, basically, on that theme.

We think now with Ed's help that Dan E. saw these at G*bson and then made his own. From there Bryan Gallup and then of course some of his many, many students through the years made them too. I'm a stickler at providing attribution in this very much shared endeavor that we do so it is important to me to provide attribution when ever possible. Looks like some old, dead dog's leg gets the attribution this time...

David Farmer--

That poor guitar looks like it is being tortured for information. Maybe it is stuck in Guitmo.

Yeah Don, after that I had to move on to waterboarding.

I get you like your vices Hesh. As I say I might give one a try. I'm just challenging the Idea that it's clearly superior across the board. and I'm trying to think how I could make use of it in my shop. How would you plane a fingerboard on a bowl back Mandolin for example?
The urethane patternmakers jaws can clamp just below the surface of the board securely letting me plane in either direction. Holding one by hand on a bench is like trying to plane a wet Avocado pit.

The neck taper I was wondering about was along the neck. Not from the hinge up.


Here are a couple more examples of how I use my vice that would require some other method w/ yours.
gluing a loose x brace

planning a bass fingerboard

bushing a peghead


I don't have a picture but the clip on transducer from my tuner lives clamped on to the steel bare of my patternmakers vice and reads instruments clamped in it well.

There is no end to the things on witch to impale instruments in my shop. My enemies for bumping things are rushing, of course, and change. You mentioned it was pulling out an old vice(change) that was the culprit in your case not the sharp edges.

Just checked them both. The vise from Japan Woodworker is $134.99, and $144.37 from Stew Mac.

Which means the major decision is clearly whether you prefer green or red

I think both vises look useful in different ways. I'm not sure how I'd shape a nut in Hesh's or hold a scraper while I burnish it, but having it at the end of the bench to hold the neck looks pretty convenient for set-up work.