The Virtue of Vises

What Wikipedia says about vises.

     I thought that I would start with a link to the Expert (on everything) and then talk about some of my vises.  

   My first vise is actually related to my current theme of tools at the apartment/first time home owner level and my most recently acquired. If you have been reading along you know I have a thing for clamps, I actively believe that you can never have too many clamps.  That said, a vise is really just a clamp that doesn't move around much.  I have been using wooden hand screw clamps, clamped to my bench as vises for years, they are pretty good but....not as good as this tool.

  

   A little vise like this can be clamped to a table or portable work bench to hold things you are cutting with a hack saw, or things you are trying to file or drill.  When you are done your little job, it goes into a box and gets out of the way, neat eh!.

Bessey Three Inch Clamp On vise.

  This Bessey Vise is the "cat pajama's".  The jaws are three inches wide and open nearly three inches, and the alignment of the jaws is very good.  You can see that there is a heavy screw and two alignment bars to keep things moving smoothly and accurately.  The vise clamps securely onto your bench, table, or portable workbench with another smooth strong screw.  These things should be no surprise, Bessey does make the best clamps out there, clearly the quality of the materials used has a huge impact on the quality of the tools produced.

   Why would anyone need a little baby vise like this?  I don't know about you but I use it all the time.  Every time I make a kid's toy or a wooden bracelet, or anything that is smallish and needs to be sanded or filed this is what holds the piece while I do the work.  I move the vise around my shop to take advantage of natural light, to avoid accumulated clutter or to enable me to work sitting down sometimes, and standing up others.  I honestly don't know why it took me so long to get this little tool and I can't picture doing with out it now.  I have only had it for a little over a week and it is now an indispensable part of my shop.

  Finding little treasures like this vise is the reason I go to shows and in-store events, I can take my troubles to a sales representative that knows the entire line of their products.  The sales rep. can tell me what is out there and point me toward a solution to my problem, their job is to keep me a satisfied customer and out there using tools.


p.s.  Thanks Doug.

The Next Tool for an Apartment Tool Kit

  The next tool that a small tool kit needs is a hand drill, I suggest a 1/2in Hammer Drill like this one.  It is cheap and will do most everything an apartment dweller or first time home owner needs.

   When you go to a tool store to get you drill there is a vast universe of hand drills available, most are cordless with key less chucks. ( go to a tool store, not your local super duper everything store, buy tools at a tool store, toilet paper at a toilet paper store)  Why do I suggest this type of drill as the one to start, several reasons:

1. A small time user is someone that drills a few holes now and then, projects like book cases and putting up shelves in the hallway etc.. A decent cordless drill is an expensive tool to have sitting around for months at a time unused.  Also if a battery drill is not used regularly the user will find the batteries flat when they go to use the tool.  Expensive drills come with fast chargers, but the cheaper drills take a couple of hours to charge. Cheaper battery drills also have much fewer inch pounds of torque.  Go corded, since the drill is a low power tool you don't need an expensive high grade extension cord either.  Besides, in an apartment there is probably an outlet chose to the task at hand.

2. Why hammer, because lots of apartments are concrete block or poured concrete.  If you want to put up a hat rack by the door you will be drilling into concrete.  The proper tool makes drilling concrete a breeze.

3.  Keyed chuck, cheaper drills don't have very good key less chucks.  Keyed chucks are nearly always metal, since they are not stylish they are better quality and so will last a life time.

   As your tool box expands your 1/2 inch hammer drill will always have use even when it is replaced by cordless drills, this drill becomes the second drill you use to drill holes while driving screws with the cordless, making it so you don't have to keep changing bits on your cordless.

   My first drill was a B&D 3/8 variable speed corded drill that I got when I was a teenager.  Hammer drills were unusual and expensive in those days. I think my drill cost about $39.00 in those days so drills haven't really gone up in price at all. It was a Christmas present and I used it for at least 30 years before it finally gave up the ghost.  I killed it using it to spin a sanding disk on a very large project.  The drill would still be here if I hadn't abused it by over working it on a continuous cycle and burning out the motor.

   There are plenty of 1/2 corded hammer drills on the market.  Generally the cheaper ones are old fashioned looking and a little bit big in your hand but this is not the tool you buy to drill dozens of holes a day, this is the starter tool you buy to drill a couple dozen holes per year.

   Remember the right tool makes the impossible, possible.