Small work holders

The size of the things you are working with, make a big differences in the kind or work holder devices you could uses.
Lets look at a few.  I just happened to recently added to my colle..err.. I meant assortment of user devices :-)

Rounded up my usual suspects in the line up.

That was easy, this is the bench (solid core door) were they see most action

A small, 100 mm, Record Engineers (UK) or Machinist (US) vise.

Intended for metal working, it is however very useful in a wood shop.  

This is the one in my hand tool shop. 

 I don`t know if you can see it, but there are NO anvil surface on this vise.

In the hand tool shop I rely on my bench leg vise, and etc, but on this craft bench, 

this is the small portable woodworking vise I used.  

It is a copy of a Record vise by Mastercraft 

These are fine for a lot of operations, but sometimes, you need something smaller and ... different.
A carver vise, also small anvil surfaces and small portable vises comes to mind.

 

L-R Veritas carving vise, Panavise, with engineer head vise, Dremel vise.

The Veritas is a carving vise so by its nature it can be used as an anvil.  Not shown, but I keep a small piece of solid iron bar about 6 in long as a buck (anvil)

The Dremel being a close copy of the Panavise but is not as versatile due to the lack (??) of attachments heads as are available for the Panavise system.

The PCB holder head attached to the base.

There were other attachments available.

Panavise was marketing PCB repairs solutions along with PACE desoldering systems.

Hence why I bought one in the late 70s.  Served me well all these years. 

That little vise has been in and out of my electronic repair shops, woodworking shops, and just about whatever space I happens to work in, on whatever.  Awesome versatile vise.

My son, Matt has been known to borrow mine a few times.  When I saw that Dremel vise in the Flea market, I knew I had to have it for him :-)
Will deliver shortly to him along with his stitching saddle, for leather working.

The interchangeable (??) heads are fastened by a grub screw on a hexagon shaft

Both the Dremel and the Panavise have detachable jaws for various jobs.

The Panavise is locked by a big star knob on the side, the Dremel by rotating a big nut on the base

The Dremel apparently lost one of its jaw protector somewhere...

The Panavise has nylon jaws, showing their battle scars,

 bought this in 1978 according to my records 

The Dremel is notably heavier than the Panavise.  

Guessing Zamak (Panavise) and iron (Dremel) castings?

Since not all mechanic vise have a built on anvil surface in the rear, some sort of anvil surfaces are handy.  Please note, if there is no apparent anvil surface DO NOT use the upper part or cover of, the screw on your mechanic vise, using the screw part (movable) will damages it. NEVER, NEVER do that.

There are NO anvil surfaces on that small self centering Starrett vise

Depending on the scale of your work, a small portable anvil 

and or a small  jeweler one will handle most everything

And in the:  What will they think of next department (subtitled What were they thinking :-)

If you do small close work like  tying fly fish lures, a small articulated arm like shown here is a great idea, HOWEVER, I have yet to see one that maintain its positions reliably.
Good idea, but need better locking joints.  I suppose if you went to a specialized fish lure stores, they probably make much better ones??

Very versatile, damn near useless

This next one I got from  a two dollar sale table, so I figured what the Hey,
I recognized the Wilton name on it, and remember seeing ads a few years back, but was not quite sure if I was missing something.  Wilton is an older established US maker of vise
Turns out that yes, or no.

NO, it was available by itself, as found

And yes, they made a special bar clamp for it 

Intriguing so lets try it out

While you could use a clamp in the woodworking vise

it works...but

This is a very clever design.

It held everything I thrown at it.

Holding the clamp by the center (stronger) and being able to 

rotate the upper part 360 degrees, is a big bonus

 

See the two blue buttons?

Top one when depressed, allows you to rotate the head.

It has a lot of small increments cogs.

The bottom one is to disengaged the speed nut on the screw vise.

 Although made of some sort (I`m guessing) glass re-enforced nylon, it is sturdy...ish, but it remains after all plastic and I am sure I could break it.  Should be just fine in a craft`s room environment.
Found out that the original ad copy talk about quote Construction is of 30,000 PSI strength  plastic Unquote.  There is some play in it, so I would not be expecting doing hard work on it.

My only reservation would be to forget about the rapid release feature on the screw.  Being plastic, you are asking to chew it up, my thinking.  I think I got my two bucks worth :-)

Neither those Wilton and Dremel design seems to have survived long, but there is a new one from Dremel that kinda combined both design together.


And finally:  You may have noticed that small strange looking vise earlier? (see first pic)

And if you thought. That looks like a small saw vise?

You would be right.

Although my specimen being unmarked, this is the closest match I found.

How small is it?

Here it is besides a Sargent vise similar to the one shown in advertisement, 

with a small 18 inch Shurley & Dietrich panel saw installed.

So what do you do with it?  Well it turns out that having a variety of saw vises of various sizes can get very handy :-)

From L-R

 Crafstman made 24 in jaws, Disston No 1 9 in jaws, 

Sargent No 103 9-1/2 in jaws, Taylor 3-1/4 in jaws 

Because saws comes in all kind of sizes.  Sample from by biggest to smallest hand saws

From T-B

Disston Mitre saw 27 in  clipped heel,

Disston Rip saw 26-1/2 in  

Shurley & Dietrich Panel saw 18 in 

 A small selection of Pad saws.  English and American (Disston)

So what do you do with it??

Sharpen small blades obviously :-)

 I also used it on small dovetail or miniature cross cut saws.  Well, miniature up to a point, If I cannot see the teeth, not bothering with it :-)
And, YES, I have and use magnifying glasses of all kinds and lots of light.
I am an old man, so light and magnifier aids helps...up to a point (11 TPI actually :-)

And finally, I would be amiss to not give an honorable mention to the inventor of the hockey puck turned work holder: The Rockler Bench cookies and its numerous wannabees

I like mine stored in this handy metal rack near by

I also bought in to the wonderful myriads of contraptions they make for it, studs, pointy covers, extensions rods etc etc...  Can`t say I ever used them, much in an hand tool shop, but they have better uses in a power tool shop I suppose??

I dunno if you can see the cob webs in the pic, 

but that is how much they get used :-)

Bob, sorting out and researching his new finds.  Marples is next .
Oh and I'm told I have to clean my window in the shop :-)