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Even if I am new to woodworking, something really bother me when it happen: vice racking.

I usually desperately look for a piece of wood "kind of the same thickness" in the reach of my arm and usually find…nothing. I then have to let go the clamping, find a piece of scrap, attach a spring clamp to it and start again…The kind of stuff I do not really enjoy.

Few commercial tools are available but their subdivisions make really little sense to me: +/- 2mm is too accurate to me, id est I cannot be bothered with so many layers ; 5mm would have been easy and nice but I wanted an even measurement as the wood I buy is often between 22 and 26 mm.

On this very forum « Mafe » made a really nice tool , and as I saw it I thought « as usual with Mafe's work , balance between function and aesthetics is superb »…that why Danish design is so famous after all !

I am extremely stingy with my spare wood, and I fortuitously kept an ugly shaped piece of door I found in the recycling centre's skip. Any sensible man would have discarded this scrap piece, but I am glad to be stingy, this would be perfect for the job.

I decided on 10 times 4mm thick subdivisions, 4cm wide to be handled easily and 11 cm long (for my liking).

As a beginner, everything is a good occasion to experiment and I tried to rip cut my wood 5mm thick over 70mm wide, this looked quite unsafe so I built a quick and dirty « ride over fence push block» that worked ace. I will definitively make a better looking one.
This gave me an about 5mm piece out of stock that I had to mill accurately-ish to 4mm on my extremely cheap and inaccurate thicknesser, but again, I had to find out a way to increase a tad the accuracy, which is a good thing!

I then followed « Mafe »'s pictures for the building process and two brass washers and drawer pulls later (one was "epoxyed" to a cut off screw, I had my tool ready.

I finished with my only bottle of ready made Danish Oil (5 coats I believe) and « what I think to be Meranti » looked super nice.

At the end of the day the spacer is 43mm which is far from 10×4mm and I believe my tool is not as nice as the one which inspired me (I try hard but I am still not Danish) but this tool is really helpfull to me (half the goal is reached then).

Many thanks for reading my broken English, and thanks again for the inspiration Mafe and all the forum members gave me!

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I used the left over slats from Venetian blinds to make vice rack stops. They work but don't look as nice as yours.
 

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You may be not be native to Danish design or the English language but you invested enough thought and work to express yourself well in both your vice spacer and your description of it here. You should be quite satisfied with your work.
 

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Hi everybody, Many many thanks for the kind words, it is extremely motivating. Dust_Maker, thank you very much for your delicate comment as well!
 

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That's a cool version, the drawer pulls give it some extra style.
I acually use mine also quite often, just makes sense and makes work more easy.
(The Irony is I bought my brass parts in Paris).
Thanks for the kind words and I smiled when you used Dansih oil, then all was in place, laugh.
Way to go!
Best thoughts,
Mads
 
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