I don’t know why, but sometimes very useful ideas are often overlooked or ignored by workers even when the benefits are pointed out.  Here is an idea that was given to me by my friend Graham Ockleshaw that no one but me seemed to show any interest in.  And I am very glad that I did. 

It is common practice to fit bench vices with soft jaws or `Clams’ made of soft aluminium or copper so that work clamped in the vice is not bruised or scarred by the hardened and knurled steel jaws.  I used soft jaws for years, but was often irritated by the way that they would fall off as you opened the vice.  This always seemed to happen when I had both hands occupied with the job in hand.  I tried several methods of stopping this problem including using commercially available magnetised plastic and forming a set of the sheet metal type so that they locked in place. 

The magnetic type didn’t grip my work too well, but still managed to fall off from time to time and the formed sheet type was hard to take off when it wasn’t wanted.  Here is the answer to all my problems.  A small diameter rod is riveted to the removable metal soft jaw  That slides into a hole drilled into the center of the hardened jaw piece to firmly retain the soft jaw, yet still allows it to be easily removed or replaced.  The next question is how to drill into the jaw piece.  Firstly, many of these bolted on jaws are not all that hard and they can be tackled with an ordinary HSS drill at very slow speed and with lots of lubricant.  If yours resists that approach, you can try using a re-sharpened masonry drill with the tungsten tips modified so as to have slightly positive rake.  In my case I cheated a little by using a spark eroder (EDM machine).  Whatever the method used to achieve the end, it is worth the trouble so that you never have the irritation of soft jaws falling on the floor at critical moments.

Here is a photo of my (West Australian made) bench vice fitted with a set of soft jaws (sometimes called `Clams’) that never fall off.  The front soft jaw is clipped firmly into place, but the piece from the rear jaw is sitting across the jaws so that the retaining rod can be seen.  The short length of 5mm rod is riveted to the removable soft jaw.  When it is fitted to the vice the rod slides into the hole that has been drilled into the center of the hardened and knurled jaw piece.  This firmly retains the soft jaw, yet allows it to be easily removed or replaced.