Workshop Projects and Honest Tool Reviews
The history, types, identification, and restoration of bench vises and workholding tools.
Types of Vises Every Shop Should Know: Machinist, Woodworking, Leg, Pipe, and More If you’ve spent any time in a workshop—whether you inherited a vise from a relative, picked one up at a flea market, or you’re standing in the hardware store trying to figure out what the heck you actually need—you’ve probably noticed that … Read more
Garrett Dunn · August 6, 2026Can You Mount a Bench Vise on the Wall? What Actually Holds and What Doesn’t Yes, you can mount a bench vise to a wall. But the wall has to do the job a benchtop normally does, and most walls aren’t built for it out of the box. I learned this the hard way early … Read more
A Short History of the Bench Vise: From Blacksmith Leg Vise to Machinist Workhorse There’s a twelve-dollar cast-iron vise sitting in my garage right now, painted industrial green, that I pulled from an estate sale years ago. When I brought it home, rust and decades of shop grime covered everything—I couldn’t make out the casting … Read more
Garrett Dunn · July 23, 2026
During last January, my garage temperature dropped enough that I realized something I’d overlooked for years: a crusty bench vise buried under sawdust and old rags actually worked better than the shiny one hanging next to it. That discovery came from pulling it out to use for a quick metal job, and when I finally … Read more
How to Mount a Bench Vise So It Actually Holds: Bolts, Height, and Overhang I’ve seen it a hundred times: someone restores a beautiful old vise, polishes the ductile iron, gets the jaws smooth, threads the handle like butter—then bolts it to a bench with three lag screws and wonders why it twists under load. … Read more
5 Old Vises Worth Buying and 3 You Should Walk Away From Manufacturer spec sheets don’t mention what happens when you’re standing at a flea market table with a crusty vise in front of you, trying to decide in sixty seconds whether it’s a restoration project or a waste of truck space. That’s the gap … Read more
Rebuilding a Vise Screw and Nut: The Part Most People Skip During Restoration You’re standing at your workbench, gripping the handle of a vise you’ve just spent the weekend restoring. The casting gleams with fresh paint. The rust is gone. Everything looks restored. Then you tighten it down on a piece of scrap, and the … Read more
How to Identify an Old Vise: Brand Markings, Age, and What It’s Actually Worth Most people walk past old vises without a second glance—assuming they’re all equally worthless or equally valuable. Neither is true. Fifteen dollars bought me a crusty vice at an estate auction last June, buried beneath corroded wrenches and socket sets nobody … Read more
