Making
g the Jim
m Claarr Anvil Vise
Michaael Wollow
wski
Jim Claar made this kind
k
of vise when he
was askeed to make 20 hooks for a pot rack.
He wanteed to be ablee to form thee hooks
under clo
oser scrutiny
y than alloweed by the
low heigh
ht of an anviil. A post visse provides
the right height but not
n enough su
urface to
work the hooks. To solve
s
this pro
oblem, Jim
modified
d a post vise by cutting off
o the rear
jaw and welding
w
in itts stead a staake anvil.
His desig
gn seems to be
b a natural progression
of the post vise, exten
nding its usee to work
ood clamping
g power enab
bles the use
where go
of both hands
h
to form
m metal. I fou
und his
design in
ntriguing and
d decided to build one
myself. On
O these pag
ges, you will find
constructtion notes.
The welding waas done by a local fabricaation
shopp. I gave them
m the post aand anvil andd
askeed them to w
weld the anviil so that it iss
To begin
n, you need a post vise an
nd a small
anvil. A post
p vise witth 4 ½” jawss seems to
be just ab
bout the righ
ht size. Whilee I would
have likeed to use a sllightly largerr anvil, I
settled fo
or a 25 pound
d anvil that is
i 11 ½”
long and has a 3 7/8”” wide face. Both were
in pretty good shape.. It takes som
me heart to
cut up a perfectly
p
fin
ne tool, howeever, the end
d
result is a tool that is far superiorr to each of
the individual ones.
Cut off th
he rear jaws fairly close to the
screw ho
ole as seen in
n figures 2 an
nd 3. This
way, you
u can leave as
a much of th
he anvil as
possible, giving you more mass. Cut the
t its top aligns
a
with th
he top of the
anvil so that
front jaw
ws. In order to
o ensure a sttrong weld,
grind a ½”
½ bevel in th
he front and rear of the
anvil as well
w as the frront and rearr of the vise..
See figurres 2 and 3 for
fo details. Th
here is no
need to cut
c a bevel on
n the heel an
nd throat of
the anvil as the bottom of the cutt anvil and
the top of the cut visee form quite a large
cavity.
Figurre 1: Finisheed vise
square to
o the post. Th
his was a miistake. As
the post is
i forged and
d has a taperr to it, it is
hard to determine
d
a good
g
referen
nce point for
squareness. Instead, assemble
a
thee front jaws
to the bacck post when
n dropping off
o the
welding job,
j giving the
t welder th
he intended
referencee points. It pays to take some
s
time to
o
aligning the anvil to the
t post wheen first tack
welding them.
t
The more
m
precise you align
the anvil with the fro
ont jaw, the less
l grinding
g
you will have to do.
weldds and grindd the sides off the anvil ass well
as itts top so thatt it aligns wiith the front jjaw.
Figure 4: Anvil weldded to post.
Figure 2:
2 Dry-fit anv
vil and leg showing
s
the
groun
nd bevels
Figuure 5 shows that the left side of the jaw
doess not line up neatly with the side of tthe
anviil, instead thhere is an oveerhang. Whiile
not iintended, I im
magine that this may coome
in haandy when aattempting too bend a piecce
overr the horn, w
while holdingg it tightly inn the
visee.
F igure 5: Dettail showing jaw overhanng.
Figure 3: Cavity crreated by thee anvil and
visse top.
Figure 4 shows the weld
w between
n the anvil
and the leeg. As you can
c see, they
y did a fine
job filling
g in the caviities. Next, clean
c
up the
All iin all, this w
was a neat prooject. I am
anticcipating yeaars of back-saaving use.