When I worked at Geo. Rennies Bicycle Shop in the late 1970s and early 1980s we had a huge vice mounted on a cement filled garbage can. A couple of us could walk it about with much difficultly, it weighed hundreds of pounds. For bike shop work way overkill. All my own vices, I have 3 mounted and a couple of others in the wings, are bench corner located. I have often thought back to that garbage vice (the vice wasn't garbage...) and wondered about duplicating it's free access. But it's not hard to just reposition the frame on the bench corner ones.


To me more important then complete free access is that the vice is solidly mounted and the bench doesn't move about while filing. Finishing a joint on a wiggling vice is like riding on the road with undamped suspension. Every stroke gives one pause. Andy