Every chair class Chris teaches seems to develop its own gravitational pull. It’s inevitable – if you orbit within 50 feet of a class taught by Chris Schwarz you will get sucked in.
Now getting sucked into a class can mean many different things: Perhaps it means assisting students taper chair legs by hand until your shirt starts sticking to you; or remaking an arm in record time due to a irreparable and untimely break; or sometimes becoming the designated lunch fetcher of the day (this task can quickly make you popular among the students).
I of course am speaking from experience. I’ve completed all of these tasks at least once and am in no way complaining about it. I openly love the infectious energy of a class week – it’s chaotic and exhausting at times and I live for it. I love walking into work unsure of what the day will hold.
While the palpable energy from last week’s class was no different, one of the tasks I was given was new to me.
With how often we use our tools here, on top of student usage, shop maintenance is a constant. Planes and chisels need sharpening, floors need sweeping and carver’s vises need new jaws.
This is nothing against our beloved carver’s vises; we use them daily here. There is, however, one fault we’ve found with most of them – the softwood jaws that come standard on the vises have a tendency to lose their heartiness over time. (The newly recast Grizzly vise comes with hardwood jaws.)
Either the constant use causes the screw holes of the jaws to strip (which is what happened in this case) or the soft pine cracks. Or both (which is what happened in this case). When these things happen, either oak or hickory are what we typically use for new jaws.
After Chris gave me a quick lesson on how to replace the old jaws, I got to work.
Below is a visual step-by-step of how I made this repair.
You went through some trouble to save the liner. Is the benefit protection of the clamped piece or better grip? My second hand version is just wood clamps – luckily hardwood.
I’d say both!
Nice job! Fun to read short essay with nice photos. Will definitely keep this in mind when time comes to replace my piney jaws.
Bumped into your byline in the Times today. So quite accidentally I read two things you wrote today, couldn’t be more different in tone, style or substance, but both great, and a bizarre and neat coincidence. Good on ya! Make Chris buy you a congratulatory meal!
No way! Agreed, what a wild coincidence. Thanks for sharing, I’ll certainly let Chris know of your suggestion lol
Maybe I’m wrong (or nitpicking), but would it have been better to orient the grain horizontally so it doesn’t split off from the inevitable errant plane stroke?
That’s a great point, I take full credit for not thinking ahead, a rookie mistake. I simply was trying to save wood. With the piece of hickory I was given, tracing the jaws vertically meant I wouldn’t have as much scrap. I wasn’t thinking forward to those inevitable errant plane strokes. Whoops.
How about Crubber, or suede-side leather, rather than rescuing that stock rubber sheet?
The urethane is incredibly grippy, durable and surprisingly expensive to replace. Crubber is great until cracks. Suede is probably my favorite liner for vise jaws – it’s the most durable material I’ve used.
We chose to keep the urethane rather than replace it.
Being expensive, I’m surprised the manufacturer uses it. Don’t tell them.
Crubber didn’t last through two sets of chair sticks on the maple replacement jaws I made. I’ll have to give suede as shot.
Where do you get your suede liner? The vise on the bench I made 20+ years ago is still bare wood.
You can buy little sections at craft stores. We bought that side (it’s nubuck, not suede) from Weaver Leather.
I really need to get a roll of double sided tape.
What glue did you use to fix the urethane liners?
Yellow glue, Titebond 1.
These “jaws” are very useful, not only on the top of the bench but very much also when mounted to the side of the bench. This gives a horizontal mouth opening or a vertical one and all between