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Thanks Howard.


Howard, are you holding my favorite over the top guitar in your picture? I remember its debut. What a magnificent show of craftsmanship.

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Aoibeann

I have a Parrot vise and the Veritas patternmakers vise (called the Tucker vise). I can't imagine working without either of them.


-C

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Freeborn Guitars
and home of BeauGuard©

I will bring this thread back to the top. One question that I have not seen answered is What does the Stew Mac vise do that the Versa Vise does not do or what can the Versa do that the Stew Mac does not? Reading through this topic, my thoughts are to go with StewMac + the Wells-Waterman Guitar holder.

The Veritas Twin Screw or the Tucker Vise would be a nice luxury, but I can't justify the cost. BTW, My favorite item in this thread is Filippo's method of mounting his parrot vise.

This thread as well as the work bench thread and the neck jig thread have been great for ideas on how to gear up the workshop.

Greg

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Greg Hatcher
North Carolina

The patternmaker vise (StewMac) allows to hold tappered pieces. It is very sturdy and heavy, it can also rotate and lock, thanks to the screw holding it to the bench.
The Versa vise is much lighter, definitely not as sturdy, and the mechanism locks both the jaws and the rotation. It needs to be set up right for the vise not to rotate when pressure is exerted, and reset regularly. It is not machined as well as the patternmaker. To hold tappered pieces (such as a neck) you will need to make convex pads out of ply or hard wood for the Versa, or buy the add-on jaws.
If I had only one vise I'd pick the patternmaker vise.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Having been inspired by this thread, I got on Ebay and bought this.....as I said, I used to have one of these....this is an excellent and very adaptable system.

Another plus of the SM vise over the versa (I have both) is that wherever you need it just drill a hole and drop it in. I love it and use the versa very little.
Terry

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Has anybody else had to shim the top of one of the vise wood jaws on the patter-maker vise, to make up for slop between steel rail bars and grooved "track" they ride in ?

In other words, there's something like a .010" to .015" gap between rails and machined area they fit into on my vise.

My quick fix, was to loosen one wood jaw, then stick a piece of compact disc in there for a shim.

Otherwise, when I'd tighten the jaws, the top of the jaws would become farther apart than the bottom of the jaws.

If anyone has a better solution, I'd like to hear about it. More interested in ways of tightening the fit between rail and groove, since I have already thought about putting a slight taper on the wood jaws to give the same effect as the shim.

With this kind of poor quality, I feel the Chinese made Pattern-makers vise *should* sell for $40.00. It's just that when I see drill presses selling new for $40.00, I think the pattern-maker vise should be about the same price. But it's a demand thing. If HF thought the average Joe would want a pattern-makers vise, you'd see them at HF. Probably $40.00 on sale.

I also don't understand why StewMac thinks the original handle needs to be replaced with a different kind of handle. No problem with the original handle on mine. Glad it don't have any plastic parts on it.

Also have the pipe-clamp vise set-up, and got the exact idea from StewMac 'trade secrets' in the early 90's.