Vise

"It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice. I consider the real vice is making losses."
- Winston Churchill

Ok, so the quote has nothing at all to do with the kind of vise we're talking about today.
But it really is a great quote, and I knew I needed at least one Churchill quote before my blog could be considered "respectable". Churchill is like cowbell - you can never have too much of either.

The term "vise" or "vice" should probably be explored briefly.

In the U.S. and Canada we refer to sinful things, addictions and guilty pleasures by the term "vice".
The squeezing and pinching mechanism, which is usually employed to hold things in place is a "vise".

In the UK and Australia "vice" covers both meanings.
I have no idea how the rest of the english speaking world differentiates between the two.

Now, before the whole lot of you jump on me for waxing on and giving new meaning to the word "buttercow",
let's talk about vises.
Here are a few photos I shot in Franco Furlanetto's shop of two separate vises.


As the remer works on both forcole and remi, invariably he needs something to hold an item in place while he goes to work with a variety of tools.
A vise is the obvious choice for most applications, and not surprisingly, Venetian remers have their own version.

Known as "la morsa da remeri", this gripping element is hard-mounted to the floor, has vertical jaws, and can be quickly opened and closed using a large "nut".

Often the piece being worked on is also supported or held in place using cavalletti and other impliments.

In the remer's shops I've visited, a vise is usually either in the center of the room or close to it. Much of the work associated with bringing a beautiful forcola out of a plain chunk of wood, takes place while the wood is clamped in the vise.

In order to keep the vise from damaging or leaving marks on the piece, the jaws are made of wood as well.
Through time and use, that wood gets worn and scarred.

Gilberto Penzo has published a number of great books over the years. The book "Forcole" is a great pictorial in which he collaborated with the famous remer Saverio Pastor. Some of my very favorite images in the book feature Saverio Pastor "getting physical" with the forcola in the vise and demonstrating how necessary it is to mount the vise to the floor.