This past weekend I decided to upgrade my bench a little by adding this shop made end vise. I have had an end vise on my list of wants for a while but I just haven’t had the extra money for one. I cant remember where I saw it but I recently saw a work bench plan that had an option to add a pipe clamp as an end vise. I took that idea and kind of turned it into this. I built this all on the fly and kind of made it up as I went along. Its not the best looking but it works.. Here is what I did..
I made the vise from a very old and very solid antique bar clamp. I had two really old and very solid bar clamps that were just taking up space in the corner of my shop. I think I had planned on restoring them but had not got around to it. I decided to use one of them for my shop made vise. The first step was to figure out my measurements and figure out how this thing was going to work. I started by removing the oak trim on my bench and then I cut space in the corner for the vise jaw. Next step was to drill some holes in the bar clamp. I first had to drill out the pin at the end so I could remove the sliding steel stop on the clamp. Once that was removed I drilled a series of holes down the bar which would be used to bold the bar to my work bench frame. I used my Delta drill press to drill the steel bar. The drilling all went pretty smooth.
The next step I took was to build a wooden jaw and construct the side support. The wooden jaw has a slot cut so that it will fit onto the bar and slide along with it. There is also a slot on the side which rides along another hardwood support piece which was also added to the bench.
I pulled this all out of my ass as I was building it so hopefully the pictures show more then what I can tell you about it. I will say that once it was finished I tested it out and it works like a charm. The wooden jaw clamps nice and flat/square to the bench and with the bench dog it held my work just fine. I am very very very happy to have added this and to tell you the truth, I don’t know that I even need to go out and spend the money on a nice vise now. If this one continues to work for me then I am fine with it.
In my last photo is also an adjustable bench stop that I added to the side of the bench. I made this by drilling a series of holes and then filed them clean. It can easily raise and lower by loosening the knobs.
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