Now that my vice is nearly ready for use I’ve been rearranging a few things in the workshop. I wanted to have the vice on it’s own bench so I could have it and all my hammers in one place. I’ve been designing and planning a small bench block that would meet all these requirements. I have no experience with woodwork but with a little guidance I was going to try and make the bench myself. Thankfully I hadn’t gone about buying the wood for my vice bench creation because I was in Ikea last weekend and I found exactly what I was looking for all ready to be assembled!!
I know most of you are thinking how can a flat pack piece of furniture be strong enough to hold that huge vice but the piece I found was perfect. It’s a solid wood kitchen block and with a bit of reinforcing it should be able to withstand all my hammering. It even has two slatted shelves to hold my hammers. At the moment the bench is on wheels but I plan to cut these off to make it more stable and also to make it the correct height for me.
Here are some photos of my vice on its new bench being cleaned. I put some cardboard underneath the vice to protect the bench from all the dirt and grease. I hadn’t realised when I started cleaning the vice how much dirt was hidden in the workings. The first photo here shows the amount of dirt that came out of the vice after it’s second cleaning. I also discovered that my vice was originally red!
Hopefully with a bit more scrubbing the vice will be ready for use in the next week…