post vice height

[Aussie Yeoman]

Hi all,

If I were to get a post vice, to hold stakes, and sometimes hold projects directly, how high should it be? Will I have to know the height of the stakes first to firgure out the final hammering height?

D

[Thomas Powers]

It would be based on your height + height of the stakes + whether you will be working standing or sitting + a minor bit of how long the hammer is.

Postvises did come in different heights and some are much more convenient for some tasks than others. If you tend to have long stakes you may even be able to find one of the postvises where they chopped the leg and so get a shorty!

So get your most used stake and support it at the height you would most like to use it at and then measure from where it will hold in the vise up towards the center of the earth...

[Aussie Yeoman]

I guess the follow on question is, what is a good realitve height for a working surface? Elbow height? A little below?

Dave

[wcallen]

As usual. It depends.

For really heavy forge work, the old rule was crotch high.
For light work you want it a lot higher. My highest stuff is probably base of the sternum or about there. Much of it is more like waist and my big-ish anvils are crotch high. I have lots of different heights for different types of work...and because stakes are just different heights.

Tom definitely has separate heights for different types of stakes too.

Wade

[Brennainn]

I keep several pallets around to stand on something if I need it to be lower. It's sometimes easier to adjust your height rather than the work's.

[Thomas Powers]

For something like filing where the perfect height makes a big difference I have a machinists vise that mounts to the crank table of my floor standing drill press and so "dial it in" to the perfect height.

As for postvises; well I have ten or eleven (if you count the one on extended loan to the fine arts metals shop at the Uni), and they have several different heights and so a project may go from one to another as things change...

I've been asked to pick up another postvise at Quad-State for the fine arts metals shop at the Uni so I might get that one back in October. (Last year I bought two at Quad-State, on 6" jaw 100#, $50 and the other 3" jaw "petite" and *OLD* for $20 and no those are not typical prices, I just look so pitiful that folks *give* me stuff to go away...)