Vice

Over the last few months I have done multiple projects that would have been much easier if I had a bench vice to use. It seems like a stupid thing not to have but the one I had was bolted to the top of the Snap On side box that was stolen during our move.

Wanting another was a no brainer, where I was going to put it was a different issue.

I had been considering an idea for mounting the vice and Saturday I went out to purchase the items I needed. Here they are pictured on my Hoosier couch (pickup seat in the garage).

My plan was to use a hitch mount vice and attach a reciever to the bottom of one of my Lions benches. The reciever I purchased is 18" long, this I can cut in half and place it in two different locations on the bench.

After I removed the ring at the inlet end and cut it in half I had to reinforce the corner of the bench. It obviously was not designed for this and the forces this would apply to the corner would have not allowed the vice to be very solid. I used some of the metal left over from the rivet shelf I mounted over the garage door to make a stiffener that went from the edge of the table to the upper portion of the leg mount which would support the aft end of the reciever.

With the reciever welded to the bottom edge of the table you can see how the vice is posistioned in relationship to the bench.

This design also allows the vice to be moved a ways out from the table which will be nice for holding long pieces of pipe or metal.

The main advantage of ths setup is the vice does not take up valuable space on the end of the bench. If it is in the way of items I want to place on the bench I can simply pull the pin and place the vice on the shelf under the bench. The hitch vice plate was cheap enough (18.00) that I may use this for a bench grinder as well.

Ceiling Storage

A couple of months ago I found a Craigslist add for a clothing warehouse that was going out of business and had shelving for sale. I was not interested in any for myself as I was for shelving for work. The shelves they had listed were industrial type "rivet" shelves and being it was a clothing warehouse they would probably be in very good condition.

After making a call for directions we were talking with a liquidator on what was available. This was a 2 million square foot facility and they had thousands of shelves of all different sizes. We struck a deal and bought 30 six by eight foot shelves for $63.00 ea. They listed new for just over $500.00.

Shelves of this size are far too large for home type storage, but looking at them I came up with an idea to use one hanging from the ceiling in my garage.

I bought a four by six foot shelf from them for $50.00 and cut down the legs. I mounted it above my garage door and have enough material to make another. This one I am using to store the NOS fenders for my Nova instead of the roof of the car.

Mounted in this manner there is still enough room to put a garage door opener on the single door. I had to cut the legs shorter than I thought they would be due to the first panel of the door being kicked up as far as it is.

I am happy with how the project turned out and the cost involved. Units I was looking at that worked in the same manner were over $75.00 for a vinyl covered wire basket shelf.

I was also able to move the Nova and finish up the lighting in the single car stall, the lighting in the garage now is awesome. I have a few more things I want to finish up on in the garage (getting rid of junk), then I'll start looking more serious at either buying or building a rotisserie for the Nova.