Small Woodworking Vice for My Mini Tabletop Workbench

In this Instructable I will show you how to make a small woodworking vise from a C clamp and a few other pieces. Read the next paragraph if you are curious as to why I decided to make this vise.

I have recently come to the realization that I spend a lot of time working at my Portable Bandsaw Table How to Make a Portable Bandsaw Table : 14 Steps (with Pictures) - Instructables which sits on top of another workbench making the working height about 44 inches. This especially true when I am working on smaller projects. It brings the work piece closer up to my eyes and I feel like I have better control of what I am working on. The Portable Bandsaw Table is okay for this, but the saw blade gets in the way, I have a very limited amount of workspace, and I have nicked my knuckles on the exposed blade more than once. So, I made myself a mini tabletop workbench that I can place on top of my actual workbench, see the second picture. I also thought it would be a good idea to buy a small vise for it but unfortunately, I couldn't find anything smaller than a steel 6-1/2 inch vice which would be too large for the mini workbench. Also the steel vice has a rounded top which will not sit flush with the top of the bench. Instead, I decided to make a smaller version of a light duty woodworking vice so I could have some work holding on my mini tabletop workbench.

3 inch C clamp

1/4 inch x 4 inch x 10 inch Hardwood

1/4 inch mild steel rod

1/16 inch thick Brass plate

1/8 inch Brass rod

1/16 inch Copper wire

1/2 inch black pipe

Cotter pin

5-minute epoxy

Sandpaper - various grits

Forstner Drill Bits - various sizes

Portable Bandsaw or Hacksaw

1 x 30 Belt Sander

Table Saw

Metal File

1/16 inch and 1/8 inch drill bits

Drill Press

I sacrificed a C clamp for this because of the threading it has versus just using Acme threaded rod. There are fewer threads per inch on a C clamp screw than an Acme threaded rod. This will make screwing and unscrewing the vise just a little bit faster.

First, I cut off the swivel pad using my portable bandsaw table. I unthreaded the screw/handle and set is aside.

Next, I cutoff the Nut portion of the handle and used my 1x30 belt sander to remove the excess material and round off the nut. It is not a perfect circle but its good enough.

I needed to add a spacer to the screw/handle portion of the vice, this will act as a standoff and give you fingers some room to turn the handle as well as act as the driving force behind the front jaw of the vice. I had a scrap piece of 1/2 pipe that fit decently over the screw portion of the handle. So, I cleaned off the paint and debris using my 1x30 belt sander before cutting it to size.

I then took the cleaned-up pipe to my portable bandsaw table and cut off the threaded section. Then I measured 3/4 of inches and cutoff the section that would become the spacer. I also used my 1x30 belt sander to round off the edges and remove any burrs.

Next, it was time to work on the jaws of the vice. I have a scrap piece of hardwood that is extremely dense and hard. I don't know what type of wood it is but it is very hard and often starts to smoke when drilling it. The wood is already milled to 1/2 inch thickness. I use my table saw to cut it down to 5-1/2 inches by 3 inches. This is the size that works for my mini bench. If you make this, it can be any size that will work for you.

Next it was time to work on the guide rods these will flank either side of the screw/handle. I used 1/4 mild steel rod for these two pieces. Before cutting I chuck the rod in to my drill and used some 220 grit sandpaper to remove the mill scale and polish the rod. Then I measure and cut two 3-1/2 inch long pieces using my portable bandsaw table.

The last pic shows almost all the pieces of the vice.

These next few steps may be a little confusing so I will do my best to explain them. The first set of holes to drill are for the 1/4 inch guide rods. These holes will go all the way through the back vice jaw but only halfway through the front of the vice jaw. The vice jaws are taped together to make sure that the holes will index on one another once drilled. Basically, you want to make sure the holes will line up from front to back.

Next, I drilled a 1/8 inch guide hole, this probably should have been a 1/16 inch hole, all the way through the front and back vice jaws. This is so that when I move to drilling the next holes, they will all line up from front to back. I also labeled the front of the front vice jaw and the back of the rear vice jaw.

This next hole I drill is a partial hole and will only be drilled to about half the depth of the rear vice jaw. I use the depth stop on my drill press to make sure I don't drill all the way through the rear jaw. I use a 7/8 inch Forstner bit for this recess. This partial hole is for the clamp nut that we cutoff the C clamp in step 2. The clamp nut will be epoxied into the recess.

The front vice jaw also requires a partial hole. Here again I set my depth stop on my drill press and drill a 7/8 inch recess in the front vice jaw, making sure not to go all the way through. This recess is for the handle spacer and will help keep the screw lined up with the rear nut.

Next, I drill another partial 7/8 inch hole on the inside face of the front jaw, see picture 2. This is a fairly shallow hole it is only about twice the depth of a washer. This hole may require some fine tuning later as there will be a cotter pin used to hold the screw portion in place and there needs to be room for the cotter pin height to spin freely. This will hold a washer which will assist when it comes to unscrewing the vice jaws or rather when you are opening the vice. Next, I drilled a 5/8 inch hole through the center recessed holes. This is for the screw portion to fit through.

The last two pictures show what the inside and outside of the front jaw should look like when finished drilling all the recesses and holes.

Lastly, I used the 5/8 inch drill bit to drill a through hole in the back vice jaw.

As I mentioned earlier there will be a cotter pin inserted into the handle and in order to accomplish this I have to remove some of the material from the bottom of the inside front vice jaw. To do this I just clamped my work piece down and use a chisel to carve out the small area at the bottom of the vice jaw. This material just has to be even with the depth of the recessed hole.

I plan to use brass pins to hold the handle spacer in place so first I drilled a 1/8 inch hole all the way through the spacer.

The spacer does not fit snugly enough over the screw portion so I flatten some copper wire and insert it in between the spacer and the screw to center the spacer as best I can. Basically the copper wires are acting as shims.

Now with the spacer secured on the screw I used the predrilled holes as a drill bit guide to drill into the threaded section. I inserted a 1/8 inch brass rod to keep the spacer from moving.

I used my hammer and my bench vice to peen down the brass rod, this will help lock the spacer in place. I ended up adding another brass rod to further secure the spacer. I cleaned up the brass pins on my 1x30 belt sander.

I test fit the screw/handle in the hole and mark the position of the cotter pin. I used a metal file to create a flat spot for drilling. Next, I used a 1/8 inch drill bit to drill a through hole in the screw/handle section I had filed flat.

Now it was time for glue up, I used 5-minute epoxy to glue the clamp nut in the rear of the rear vice jaw and I also epoxy the two guide rods to the inside front vice jaw. I couldn't really figure out how to clamp down the pieces, so I used a combination of spacers and weight to secure everything while the epoxy dried. It would probably be a better idea to epoxy these separately, but it worked out in the end.

Here is a quick mockup to make sure everything lines up. If for some reason the guide rods were crooked, I could remove them and re-epoxy them in the proper alignment.

Since I wanted the vice to sit flush with the top of my bench, I had to trim the excess off the top of the vice jaws using my table saw. In my case I had to remove about a 1/4 of an inch to make them flush.

I didn't have a washer that had the exact dimensions I needed for the vice, so I had to make my own washer out of some scrap 1/16-inch brass plate. I used the spacer as a guide to mark the outside diameter on to the brass then I used a Forstner bit to drill the hole. Then I used my portable bandsaw table to remove the excess brass and my 1x30 belt sander to clean up the washer and round over the edges. It is not perfect by any means but it fits in the vice jaw recess so it will be more than sufficient.

I superglued the brass washer into the inside jaw recess, but I later ended up epoxying it in place for a stronger bond.

With the spacer epoxied in place I inserted the screw/handle and inserted the cotter pin in to position. I made sure to bend the legs of the cotter pin over so that they could spin freely in the recess without catching on the inside wall of the recessed hole.

I needed a way to attach the vice to my bench, so I drilled some 1/4-inch holes into the rear vice jaw. I made sure to countersink the holes for the screw heads.

I decided that I wanted to recess the rear vice jaw into my bench so that it would sit flush with the top and the side of the bench. I marked the position of the vice jaw on the mini workbench and used my table saw with my crosscut sled to remove the material one pass at a time.

Unfortunately, I was not able to remove all of the material on the table saw because of the construction of my mini workbench. So, I had to use a small cutoff saw and remove the last section by hand. I used a file and some sandpaper to clean up the recessed area.

Now I was able to attach the rear vice jaw to the mini workbench. I made sure to predrill some screw holes and then actually attach the rear vice jaw with some 2-inch screws.

Here is the finished vice. I really like the way it turned out and think that it will definitely come in handy when working on my mini tabletop workbench. I hope this Instructable was helpful and possibly even inspiring. Thanks for taking the time to read through all these steps.

Bonus: I decided to make a mini vice using a 2-inch C clamp and some scrap pieces of the mystery wood. This thing is truly adorable. I used the same process as stated above, I just used smaller drill bits.