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Leg vise - Planning for toe-in clearance on leg/chop vise screw holes

Woodworking Asked by Scott Hilbert on December 10, 2020

I am building a workbench with a leg vise using a traditional parallel guide/pin board. The vise screw is an off-the-shelf 18" metal vise screw, vise screwthe legs are southern yellow pine and the vise chop is also southern yellow pine, 2" thick.

There is one thing I am not 100% clear on. I know that a leg vise chop doesn’t remain parallel to the leg in use, to ensure the top contacts first and also because the pin board can only support so many discrete pin positions. But I have not seen many descriptions about where in the system the pivot occurs and planning for it.

Since the screw and the nut have some play, about 1-1.5°, and the handle/garter end of the screw does not, I am assuming that all that pivoting comes from the angle of the vise screw inside the nut. The nut is in theory rigid to the leg, and the screw is in theory rigid with respect to the vise chop. To that end I am planning on drilling a tight hole for the vise screw on the chop side, and a slightly larger hole in the leg. The amount to over-size the leg hole I can calculate using trigonometry given the leg thickness and the expected pivot angle. (I suppose ideally it would be a tapered/conical hole but I’m not sure if I will go that far.)

However, I have never really seen anyone describe using a larger hole in the leg than the chop, and I have also heard people say a leg vise chop bends in use, or that they install bushings somewhere in the system. Or, maybe people just let the screw chew out the space it needs in the leg hole in use. Anyway, I’m worried I’m missing something.

Is my plan to drill a larger hole in the leg to allow for the screw to pivot reasonable?

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