Re: Dowels, etc.
Michael Recchione
>Bill, your reputation as a turner hasn't escaped me :-). My point was that you'd have to drill holes for the dowels, too. The only thing that would be different would be the angle you drilled the holes at. And, if you didn't think in terms of drilling them on a drill press before you mounted the new face on the vise jaw (this is the hand tool forum, afterall), the work to drill the holes would be identical for the dowels or the LV dogs.
Because I mostly don't use power tools (although I do have a drill press that I primarily use for metal work), it would never occur to me to drill the holes before the face was mounted on the vise, and it would be more of a pain to try to drill them parallel to the metal jaw than to just drill them square to the top - I'd have to copy the angle with a bevel gage and use that instead of a square.
Boy, I could have used your turning skills last weekend - I was making legs for a chair, and it was the first time I had to try to make four things come out more or less the same on the lathe. I made three practice legs in poplar first and then did two of the four real legs - it took all of Sunday afternoon. So we have a ways to go before we get to production grade, I think :-). I am getting much more comfortable with the skew, though - that's a good thing. Anyway, this is the wrong forum for this kind of talk.