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My daughter the guitar tech took a tour of the closed Gibson plant in Kalamazoo and found a bench and vice she thought was interesting. So, of course, I had to build one for her to try out - hope it gets some use. What do you think - has this been tried and abandoned? Can you see any improvements?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/s ... 540926993/

Ed Minch

Hi, Ed,
I think it's an interesting spin off. Your use of a pipe clamp for the vise screw is pretty nifty. I've seen that done before on tail vises, but not on a set up like this. An improvement I'd offer would be to pad the jaws and the ledge of the horizontal neck rest with leather or cork. Or you could probably use a narrow strip of carpet for lighter clamping. If you want to get really fancy with it, you could make pivoting jaws--or ONE pivoting jaw. I've often considered making a similar vise, but I don't have a walk-around bench. My benches are against walls. Ergo, I'd need to make mine on a small, bench-top platform, so I could move it from one end to the other and clamp it in place as needed. It'll be interesting to see what others say about it. I am sure every professional builder and repair person on the forum has found or improvised a vise for this purpose, and there are probably dozens or hundreds of design variations out there. I hope some of the folks post their own solutions as a way of offering suggestions to you. I'm not suggesting your thread should be hijacked--I just think it would be informative to see examples of design ideas and improvements.
Patrick

Please hijack - I am looking for good solutions. I had mentioned that I am looking for leather, and also that the movable jaw has enough slop that it follows the angle of the neck. What do you think of the movable height of the cross bar? Also, I didn't mention that the whole vice can come off and get mounted on the opposite side to make it other-handed.

Ed Minch

Great idea! I would want to have each jaw parallel but it looks like the Gibson vise got and still gets lots of use. Have you seen the Benchcrafted Leg Vise? Jameel (and Roubo) has two different options for keeping the bottom of the leg parallel with the fixed leg you may want to try to duplicate. He uses a pin in a pegboard approach here:

and a metal cross pivot here:

These are cool (and expensive) and there are many ways to do this. Look at my fifth picture and you can see the method I used. Because all guitar necks are within a narrow range of widths, I made the jaws parallel for a 1-3/4" neck plus little for grabbing at the 4-5th fret. Because the jaws are 48" long, they will be very close to parallel for about all guitar necks.

You're right, the Gibson vice has been used for 50-60-70 years? without being altered, so there must be something right going on there. Maybe John Thomas can get one of those remaining Kalamazoo gals to shed some light.

Ed Minch

Thin leather jackets ~ from second hand me down stores.
Thick stuff from shoe repair shops.
or
http://www.leatherunltd.com

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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Thanks for that

I have gone here for smaller quantities:

http://www.brettunsvillage.com/leather/piece_form.php

BUt I need so little I will probably end up at a shoe repair place

Ed Minch

All kinds of leather available from Tandy. (tandyleatherfactory.com)

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I spent most of my money on women, guitars and whiskey, the rest I wasted.

I've used a similar style if vice for the last 20 years, and can't imagine goin without it. I've not included the horizontal stop, as I see no real need for it. A loop of leather deep enough to let me drop the neck as far as I like works fine, and if I want to let a neck drop incrementally the sides of the vice are tapered as I open it so this happens naturally, then I just reclamp wherever I like it.

Sorry I don't have any photos on hand, but we have five benches in our shop equipped with this type of vice.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Actually I found a few shots on my phone. One is of a Kent Everett guitar on my bench I was recently working on, and another of my daughter ringing the van-jo she made (Hesh let her borrow his bench here).

Similar style vice, slight variation from the old Gibson style.

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.