I am sharpening a bunch of 36″ and 48″ long frame saw blades so it seemed like the perfect excuse to build a specialized saw vise for these big blades. I’m building what is usually called the “Lie Nielsen Saw Vise” since it was shown in a Lie Nielsen You Tube video. This design can be scaled down very easily for more “normal” sized saws too. Enjoy!
The frame saw blades I’m sharpening here are made by Blackburn Tools.
Excellent video, Shannon. And fortuitous timing, as I need to make a vice for a saw building class with Matt Cianci I have moving up in April.
Will work on that this week, maybe.
TKW
I highly recommend the leather jaws. After sharpening 5 of these monster frame saw blades the extra “stickiness” the leather provides is a real bonus.
I have had good luck with my saw vise (a lot smaller than yours) without the hinges. I just used an oversize block on the bottom, screwing both of the vise’s sidewalls to it. With no clamping pressure, it loosens plenty enough to insert saw plates, and tightens up working exactly like yours.
Do you see any benefits to installing the hinges?
Not at all and your method sounds like a great solution. After all how wide do you really need the jaws of a saw vise to open right. I was going to use leather hinges like Lie Nielsen did, but I had that hinge set floating around and I thought it would help keep the jaws aligned better.