What are most using for mounts to their leg vises?  I have a 26" tall x 19" diameter pine stump but most leg vises need 30"+.  

The post height that fits the vise. Don't forget the socket to fit the acorn so the leg doesn't wander.

Frosty The Lucky.

I build a giant stand out of Railroad ties. Gross building it, couldn't get the smell out of my hair for days. 

It is filled with sand and oil, and weighs too much. The two 100lb vises on it do not move. That was the goal, and it worked. 

Yeah, that's a stand that should stand the test of blacksmith time. Did you make a bench / table top for it? There are a lot of high energy / torquey, etc. things you can do on a massively heavy bench / table. Your stand is certainly more practical than a masonry version and over the years online I've seen a few of those. 

I HATE cutting creosoted wood, happily it had been eliminated as guard rail posts by time I transferred to road maintenance and got to repair guard rials. Even the brown ground penetration wood guardrail posts were replaced by galvy I beam posts that are driven into the ground. I was on the crew when we were replacing the copper something treated posts and brought a number home. 

Good stuff if you can get them for free. 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

When I was working on the sheep farm, I put in a LOT of fencing with creosoted posts and spacers. I always wore gloves, but once or twice got some nasty creosote burns on my arms. 

Fun fact: creosote was one of the first suspected carcinogens, with one Sir Percival Pots observing a high incidence of scrotal cancer among London chimney sweeps.

There’s absolutely a top on it. Then another top on top of that, for good measure. With all my force I cannot inch the thing, even using a cheater bar. It’s HEAVY.

cutting them was awful. It occurred to me too late in the process to use a respirator or mask. I wonder how many years that mistake took off…. The timbers smelled to high heavens for several weeks. Now I just get some whiffs on hot days. 
 

I estimated the stand and vises combined weight at 1500lbs.

 

Look up the MSDS for creosote and see what you think. One dose of smoke probably  isn't going to get you but you wouldn't want to breath it very often. The reason they use it as a ground contact preservative is because it's pretty toxic. If you heat with a wood stove creosote is what builds up in the stovepipe and can start burning for a jolly old cabin incinerating stack fire. 

What did you cut them with? A chain saw works okay but dulls the chain and gunks it up. If it made smoke you probably used a circle saw and the creosote melts when it gets warm, sticks to the side of the blade and gets hot enough to smoke pretty quickly.

Nasty stuff creosote. It should make a stout stand for sure. You can't slide it on the floor because the creosote is sticking it in place. Given some time you might not be able to move it with a stout chain and 4x4 pickup.

Frosty The Lucky.

About 40 years ago on Thanksgiving me and 2 of my cousins were in the backyard at my grandparents house doing what ever young teenagers did. We came around the garage and there was a firetruck in the driveway. The chimney in the house had caught fire and started the beams in the wall to start burning. The fireman ripped out the wall, the fireplace, and put out the fire. The house was well over 100 years old then, still there today, and was built with IIRC 6x6 beams instead of studs. So there was no real structural damage. My grandpa was a master carpenter so he of course did the entire job. Built grandma a nice new fire place out of white brick. She absolutely hated it. 

Did she do something equally nice for him, like arrange his tools and equipment in the shop permanently?

This sort of thing happens when one spousal unit does something big for the other based on what they THINK will be liked. They often make good family stories.

Dad bought Mother a horse for her birthday, went to a lot of trouble and expense finding a gentle mare that liked women and would barely tolerate men as riders, more pedigrees than a European prince, show trophies, etc. Mother rode Babe one time for maybe 5 minutes. Dad's next birthday he got a player piano with a rinky tink lever and a BUNCH of rolls. Load a roll, turn it on and it'll play the tune. My Sister and our friends had more fun with it that Mother did though she'd listen to a few jazz pieces and swing is good dance music. We all square danced and gradually addicted most of Shannon and my friends. Classes were a lot of fun but going to club dances wasn't much at all. The difference is in classes we all laughed at mistakes club dances mistakes got angry looks, grumbling and rather nasty gossip. 

Off on a tangent AGAIN. I blame it no the Macy's Thanksgiving parade being on almost every channel and football pregame discussions and . . . stuff on the others. 

Happy Thanksgiving everybody who celebrates it. Have a GREAT day those who don't!

Frosty The Lucky.

Used a chainsaw - I don't have a circle saw big enough. Sure enough it took three chains to get all the timbers cut. I hadn't figured on the creosote "melting" out to create a contact adhesive with the concrete in my shop - but it makes sense now that I think about it, especially in the summer months. The idea behind it was to stop all manner of wobble. I have, for 15 years, been unable to build a stand that resists torque and wobble as I work on it, and I got fed up. So, the creo-stand. 

It is massively overbuilt, but that is my solution. 

It has worked so far and, thankfully, I like the position of it. I suppose if I ever need to move it it will be a full demolition project. 

Massively overbuilt is SOOOO Blacksmith. 

Just try to keep the black sticky off your hide and out of the fire.

Frosty The Lucky.