A Guide to Vises. A vise, a common mechanical device that is used to hold a workpiece stationary, is an integral tool in many woodworking and metalworking applications. Bench vises, in particular, attach directly to a workbench to hold the workpiece during operations such as sawing, planing, and drilling.

A sine vise is a special-purpose vise designed for holding work at a very accurate angle. … It’s called a sine vise because you calculate the sine of the angle you want when you set up the vise.The sine vise is a screwless vise that sits on two cylinders. One cylinder is the axis of rotation of the vise body.

Toolmaker Vise The toolmaker vises are smaller, inexpensive, and quite accurate, but more cumbersome to use, because the tightening method is a multistep latch instead of a full length screw. Toolmaker vises are popular when the work needs to be moved from one machine to the next. You can leave the work in a small toolmaker vise and move it to another machine without disturbing the workpiece, including to a drill press, mill, surface grinder or to a larger machinist vise. While it keeps the jaws from raising with a lock-down like design, the toolmaker vises normally do not have accessories like replaceable jaws or work stops like the machinist and CNC vises do.