Passing it on - kinda cool

Oh, and about one of the vises

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>I should have taken a picture of it before letting it go. Made by Yost, it's an all-metal vise, conventional two rods flanking the center screw, but...

The holes in the back casting - the one attached to the bench - are oval, and the nut for the screw is a half-nut, bolted to the casting and facing up. For quick adjustment, you just lift the front casting, causing the screw to lift out of the half-nut (the rods pivot on the back of the back casting, where the holes are smaller, or maybe I should say less oval), and letting it slide freely back and forth. Setting it down again causes the screw to fall back into the half-nut, where the heavily buttressed threads (like Record vise threads, asymmetrically shaped with the side of the thread facing the handle being almost vertical) are ready for final adjustment. Clever design, with one flaw: the play between rods and casting results in the jaws splaying bottom to top, so that the grip would be compromised. I suggested to my son that he shape the wood jaw facings with a bevel to counteract this tendency. I'm waiting to hear how it works in service.