The one piece of apparatus no workshop ought to ever be with out is a bench vise. A vise provides not solely a measure of security, but in addition versatility. The truth is, a superb vise is like having an additional pair of fingers, particularly if you’re working alone. However this ubiquitous chunk of iron or metal might be made even handier when it’s a co-called multi-vise.
In contrast to most vises which might be designed with particular duties in thoughts, a multi-vise is supposed to be adaptable to many features. A method a multi-vise accomplishes that is with a singular set of jaws, as on this Yost MV-5 unit. Relatively than having knurled or grooved jaw faces, the MV-5’s are clean to stop marring delicate supplies, as an illustration. However its actual superpower comes from the 4 “jaw canine” that go within the prime of the jaws. Right here’s the best way to put these (accented under in yellow for readability) and its different distinctive options to give you the results you want.
Insider tip: if you happen to already personal a Yost 445 vise, you possibly can improve it with the MV-5 jaw package for the very best of each worlds.
Broaden work capability
By inserting the 4 jaw canine into the holes within the tops of the jaws, the vise goes from a 2.9-inch opening to greater than 7 inches. The expanded capability is nice for holding wider items of inventory, equivalent to this piece of two” x 8” lumber.
Clamp irregular shapes
Not all the things you’ll must put in your vise is uniformly formed. The transmission housing, as an illustration, has quite a few bosses and contours (along with being slightly massive). The 4 free-spinning jaw canine middle on the half to carry it place extra securely than two parallel jaws would.
Safe spherical objects
Holding spherical work in a typical vise means there are solely two factors of contact. Relying on the way you apply power, equivalent to drilling, the work could spin within the vise with out extreme clamping. On this case, the 4 jaw canine create a four-point plain to maintain the piece stage whereas working. Much less power is required to clamp, stopping injury as effectively.
Clamp from inside out
Generally there’s simply no solution to put a chunk in a vise. It’s both too massive or doesn’t have a floor that may be clamped. Within the case of this motorbike wheel, we positioned the pins of the jaw canine within the middle bore and opened the vise to clamp it outward. It’s an uncommon method to make use of a vise, however may very well be simply the fitting answer for sanding or sprucing. And it wouldn’t be attainable in a typical vise.
Bend steel inventory
With two jaw canine inserted within the middle holes, they function leverage factors for small bending jobs. And certain, you possibly can actually make single bends within the jaws of a standard vise. However this association permits for steady, multi-radius, and multi-directional bends.
Maintain work vertically
The issue with clamping spherical items upright in most vises is that they need to spin when you begin working. The vertical V-channels within the vise faces are optimized to carry spherical inventory and {hardware} between ½” and a couple of” in diameter completely upright.
Maintain work horizontally
The identical drawback as above holds true for holding spherical materials horizontally. A pair of horizontal V-channels does the identical job within the perpendicular orientation. That is particularly useful when drilling into spherical inventory.
