woodworking vises

[Joseph Handy]

What do you guys suggest for covering woodworking vises hard or soft wood?

[Never Enough Money]

Really good question......

I use Baltic Birch plywood and it's been ok.

Joseph Handy wrote:

[efgh]

Hardwood would be better I would think. You wouldn't want the wood to compress under the pressure of the vise.

[Joseph Handy]

Isn't there a possibility that a very hard wood could cause a softer piece of wood held within the vise to be compressed?

It would appear to me that it would be preferable to have the risk of damage taken on by the pieces of wood covering the vise as they are easily replaced with scrap whenever necessary.

[B A R R Y]

It all depends on what you want to hold.

[Joe]

[Andy Dingley]

Always a hard hardwood.

If you need it softer, you can always pad a hard jaw more easily than you can harden a soft one.

[Dan]

On Wed 20 Dec 2006 12:21:36p, "Joseph Handy" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

When I built my bench I had a nice piece of red oak for one of the vises but the only piece of decent size for the other one was a hefty piece of quartersawn pine that I got out of the freebie pile at a lumber yard. I put it on intending to replace it when I got a better piece.

That was a couple years ago and I haven't noticed any difference in the two of 'em. Maybe I'm not using it enough or something but so far, the only thing I notice is I like the color of the oak better. That big chunk of pine has a lot of mass and seems to take a beating pretty well.

[Stephen M]

Hard.

If either the jaw or the workpiece dents that means that you did something wrong. You either overtightened, or you need to fabricate a jaw liner that more evenly distributes pressure between both the jaw and the workpiece.

-Steve