My toolkit has reached the stage of advanced sufficiency such that my tool-finding travels often yield tchotchkes rather than immediately needed tools. I bring you, from a recent trip to the Habitat ReStore, the Grip.O-Vise*! (open position below):
Here's the closed position. You can see the jaw has moved as the lever's been moved:
The adjustable jaw registers on teeth down the length:
The first thing that puzzled me about this little fixture is what it's for. The capacity is 5-1/8", a rather odd size, so it won't accept nominal X by 6 lumber. And you would either have to recess it on the benchtop or have some supports to bring work of any length up to its level. It also occurred to me that any heavy work, like hammering, would either dent the stock by contact with the teeth or break the really rather small cast iron jaws. Any number of other vise designs on the market will accomplish what this does, and more besides, with less hassle.
But it matters not, really, because the design is doomed by its execution. The company apparently employed two different engineers on the movable and adjustable jaws, with no communication between them, because the travel on the movable jaw is about 1/8", while the tooth-to-tooth distance on the adjustable jaw's rack is 3/16". In fooling around with it, I tried a piece of scrap that I later measured at 1-23/32". At one jaw setting, I couldn't quite fit the scrap into the vise; when I set the adjustable jaw one tooth back, the clamping jaw wouldn't actually close down on the stock. Maybe they should have changed the name to Slip.o.Vise.
So this will get tossed in the back of the Klamp Korner, where it can confuse my kids/grandkids.
*That's how it's labeled - not dashes, but periods, unless they're commas. Grip,o,Vise isn't better, so I'll stay with periods.
