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mac davis mac davis is offline
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Default 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:

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...55&cat=1,41659

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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