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Product review: Pen drilling vise

After a couple of years of shop built jigs and such, and looking at the many vises on the market, I chose the one from Lee Valley:

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It was a bit sturdier than the others, had a large know instead of a crank, good capacity and was the same price or less then the ones from PSI, Craft Supplies, etc..

I spent an hour or so drilling assorted size and shape pen blanks yesterday and as usual, realized that this was something that I should have bought a long time ago..

I haven't found anything I dislike about it yet, but a few things that I really like:

Side loading... I was wondering why there were 3 guide bars instead of 4... I got around to reading the instructions and realized that one corner was "empty" to let you load the blanks from the side, instead of backing off the DP to get them in and out.. Once I re-clamped it on the ol' Shopsmith with the open corner facing me, the stack of blanks went through a lot faster and easier..

Well thought out design.... I KNEW that these were made with a threaded shaft like a cabinet makers clamp,

1/2 with right hand threads and 1/2 with left, but the drilling, tapping, etc. was too much to deal with to re-invent a $40 tool.. Instead of tapping the movable plates, they used replaceable brass bushings... very clever and much smoother turning than threaded steel..

Anyway, once set up, it's dead-on accurate and the time to drill each blank is much less than any other way I've drilled them..

It's probably not a good investment for the occasional pen turner.... If you only drill a few blanks, it's easy enough to drill them on the lathe.. But for folks that do a lot of pens, it's a great investment, IMHO..

mac

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Reply to
mac davis
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Hi Mac I seem to recall something like "I told you so", quality hurt only once ;-)))

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

Reply to
l.vanderloo

Now you're making me feel really bad for cutting notches in the face of my wooden-jaw clamps.

Bill

Reply to
BillinDetroit

I tried that, Bill... also v-blocks attached to plywood and clamped to the DP table... I even drilled some using the DP chuck in the head stock and my Talon chuck with spigot jaws in the tail stock... Pretty accurate, but a real PITA to insert and extract the blank, plus cranking the tail stock in and out each time..

I drilled some 1/2" blanks this morning (ok, I'm cheap) and every one was dead center on both ends... Never had the accurate holding to try that before..

mac

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Reply to
mac davis

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