# The virtues of a 3 spoke vise handle.



## GaryK (Feb 24, 2013)

I don't know how many of you have ever used or even thought about using something other than the handle that comes with your vise.

I remember being in a shop a long time ago that had the balls cut off all the vise handles. The shop had all Bridgeport clones and with the
handles left long they could jam into the dovetail ways with the power feed going if you weren't paying attention.

I hated them so I had them order me a 3 spoke handle. I quickly found it was fantastic.





First it was fast. You could use one finger to spin it. There was enough mass to spin it like a propeller to quickly open or close the vise.



Second you could apply more torque than you could with the standard handle. My method is to cross my hands like the picture below.
Then with my right forearm I can apply additional pressure on my left hand with a lot of leverage. This gives you an incredible about
of tightening torque with ease.




Enco and other places have them for around $40 and in my book they're well worth it.

Gary


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## Frank Ford (Feb 25, 2013)

Absolutely!  The day I unpacked my first 3-spoke handle was the last day I used a regular pivoting vise handle - the improvement was that obvious.  Now I'll try your crossed arm technique.

The arthritis in my fingers keeps progressing, and it hurts most of the time to spin the handle by the spokes, so I added a rotating speeder knob near the center - it's really fast to run the vise all the way in or out:


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## GaryK (Feb 25, 2013)

One other note I forgot to mention.

On some machines the handles can hit the hand wheel on your y-axis depending on it's position. Having a swivel base on your vise will probably eliminate
this problem. I actually had to shorten one of my spokes by turning the shoulder on the threads a little higher.

This can only happen if your y-axis is in just the right position. 

Gary


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## GaryK (Feb 25, 2013)

Frank Ford said:


> Absolutely!  The day I unpacked my first 3-spoke handle was the last day I used a regular pivoting vise handle - the improvement was that obvious.  Now I'll try your crossed arm technique.
> 
> The arthritis in my fingers keeps progressing, and it hurts most of the time to spin the handle by the spokes, so I added a rotating speeder knob near the center - it's really fast to run the vise all the way in or out:



That's a cool little addition.

Let me know how my "crossed arm technique" works for you.

Gary


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