I am a sucker for user made tools. I find the craftsmanship and creativity
involved in these tools to often be amazing. And of course, sometimes you just
have to wonder why? What was the motivation?

Recently SWMBO and I took off for a week of travel thru southern New England. We
love to poke around in small towns and small town antique shops and of course at
this time of the year there is the wonderful fall color. While crossing
Connecticut we even managed a brief visit w/ Josh Clark for a little tool talk.
Heading out onto Cape Cod, in Bourne as I recall, we stopped at a shoppe. Joanne
was ahead of me and she said I should check out the vise in the next booth --
she has become a great rust spotter. But there was little rust on this vise,
it's mostly made out of wood.

It looks like a regular bench top vise. The 3 1/2-inch wide jaws are about
7-inches above the bench. They are opened and closed w/ an Acme screw and there
is a wood screw w/ a nut at the bottom of the jaws to keep them aligned. There
are screw holes in the bottom of the case that holds the Acme screw to suggest
that it had been screwed to a bench top from beneath. There are also two screw
holes in each side which may mean it had some kind of added rails to hold it to
a bench. The jaws are leather lined. My first thot was that it was a leather
worker's vise, but I think it is too slow for a leather worker. My impression
has always been that they need to grasp and release often and quickly. Seems too
big for a jeweler's vise. Whatever it is for, it is well made w/ wonderfully
bold dovetails to hold the case/mount to the jaws.

Any one seen one like this? Ideas on what trade it might have been created for?

Pictures are at:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/77280442@N.../sets/7215
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Bill