Universal Vise/Base Design

OK, it’s late at night so don’t be too harsh on me. I was doing a set of four kitchen knives for my sister this week and ran into mounting problems with two of them. The first and second were standard chef’s knives which I cleaned up on the polishing wheel as well as reprofiling for right-handed use (apex offset to the left). The third was a boning knife (close to a filet knife profile) with a 16 dps primary and a 20 dps micro-bevel and was too narrow for my Gen 3 vise. I had to remount my Gen 2 vise with the Low Angle Adapter to reach the angles. The fourth was a deep recurve paring knife which also required the Gen 2/LAA. I tried the Tormek adapter with both knives with no luck.

So it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to come up with a new base design that would allow for quick-changing the vise from above. Maybe a dove-tail base with a simple locking screw. There really isn’t much of a mechanical load seen at the base, so it shouldn’t be a major design issue.

This would also open the option of third or even fourth vise configurations; I’m imagining a Gen 2-type vise for diamond-shaped dagger profiles. I’m sure there are other specific needs that could be accommodated - like the Puma knives. WE could sell the jaws for different options.

What if they just sold the interchangeable jaws that would be compatible? Maybe it would be a pain driving out the pins, but for those of us that use the panavise base the suggestion above wouldn’t work would it? I may be picturing it wrong…

If you are looking to adapt a dovetail base, take a look at the swiss arca (SP) mount, that photographers use on tripod heads. I adapt them to lots of things. They are not too expensive and you can readily get the male or female side.

Good idea by the way!!