I’ve been doing a bit of repetitive hand cutting (dovetails) in my leg vice (or vise if you prefer) lately and while I am very happy with it in general, I guess the one drawback has always been that you almost need another hand for the wedge sometimes. It became enough of a frustration this week that I gave it a little thought and came up with this solution.

It’s very simple. I just inlayed a rare earth magnet into the sloped face of the wedge hole and a strip of steel (straightened out angle bracket) into the wedge. Now when you lift the wedge to move a piece in the vice instead of the wedge falling and closing the jaws, it stays up until you push it down. It makes life a lot simpler.

I’ve used the leg vice a lot over the last two years and while this has always been a little inconvenience, it didn’t ever seem worth worrying about until I started the repetitive work. Now I like it better than ever.

Thanks for looking in

Paul