Spiral_out

I planned on a stop welded to the jaw below the screw to prevent this if necessary. Not sure the 1.5" screws would do much in the way of bending under hand pressure though. I priced out water jet cut holes, $115 for 2 holes, ouch. I'll look around for someone with a mag drill. Craigslist is perpetually empty unless I want to drive a few hundred miles one way to the one vise that has been posted for the last several months. Not an exciting prospect when the vice could be trash once I get there. At least this way I'll have similar chances in outcomes with about the same amount of time invested, but I get to spend the time tinkering at home instead of drudging across the countryside. Point taken though, if this turns into an utter failure I'll probably just buy one from Ebay and move on. Definitely a mixture of 2 and 3. Mostly 3 though. I appreciate everyone's thoughts on this. I'll try to get something done on it this weekend and we'll see how it turns out.

2 screws would be doable, I'll look into that. I saw some cool gears at the scrap yard, they would make better wheels than I can weld up! I like that idea for parallel jaws. That makes me wonder if I should be cutting the bend off of the forks and using removable jaws when needed. More food for thought, thanks.

I've thought about jaw angles and how to control them, but it makes my head hurt haha. I figured I could get the clamping action working, then tweak the pivot at the bottom later to fix any jaw issues. The impact driver would be my battery powered Milwaukee M18 Fuel. I think they would be able to handle this application, but I'm not sure. I'll probably try this no matter what method of construction I end up with just to try something I've never seen before. I'm sure will get old as you say, but I'm only out a nut and some mig wire! I like the knob idea. I'll be on the lookout for a good wheel.

I scored some tines at the scrap yard for about $40 and I'm going to make a post vise out of them. Since I don't have the equipment to put a hole in the tines for the screw to pass through, I was contemplating this design. The yellow tine of course needs to be trimmed a little! The white 1" plate underneath the nuts will be welded to the stationary leg (the yellow tine), then the nuts welded to that plate. Another plate will be on the top side of the nuts. The screw will just push against the movable jaw to close the vise. The hinge at the bottom will probably just be a U passing through both holes with cotter pins to hold it in place. The bent up plates at the base will probably be cut off unless I can find a useful way to turn them into a mount. Nothing is purpose cut in this picture aside from the movable jaw being trimmed. It's all on the table as far as actual dimensions and locations of welds. The screw is a 1.5" 8 TPI. That's a little slow so I thought of welding a large nut to the tip of it and making it a power assisted vice using an impact driver or drill. I'd need a wheel or removable bar to allow final tightening by hand though. I could also just get another screw, I already have several of these though. I could drift huge holes using a hole in the ground coal forge for a more traditional design, but I think that's a lot more work than it's worth to me at the moment. I also see there being an accuracy problem when I'm trying to get the holes to line up. I can buy an acetylene torch setup to cut holes, but that's not cheap. Buying a real post vice would be great, but I can't seem to find any locally. Give it to me straight, am I wasting my time with this? Should I bite the bullet and hire out someone to make the cuts? Should I bite the bullet and buy a torch?