I have a big horizontal bandsaw, and use a smaller Harbor Freight bandsaw at the Railroad museum. They are perfect for whacking off lengths of bars and rods, but since I do not have a vertical bandsaw, there is an occasional need to make an angle cut on an odd shaped part. Trouble is, the vises on these saws are not really designed for short or odd shaped parts, and it takes awhile to figure out how to hold any particular part. In fact I see that the movable jaw on some saws is shorter and doesn’t come close to the blade...makes working with small parts harder.
I have a couple of Kreg auto-adjusting clamps for my woodworking, and I have mortised a few of the clamp plates into my workbenches so I can hold a piece flat and firm about wherever it is needed. I was wishing there was something like this for the saws, and noted that each saw has a clearance slot running the length of the bed for the vise actuator screw.
I took advantage of this, and made a simple part in just a few minutes that comes up through that slot to hold the clamp. I ran a 5/16-18 carriage bolt up through a Delrin holder, and that allows the vise to slide along the slot as needed, and rotate to any angle to hold small or weird parts securely. Just retract the vise jaw back a bit, reach under the saw with the holder, stick through the slot, and screw the clamp on loosely...it tightens as the clamp pressure is applied.
I still want a vertical saw, but this takes care of a bunch of my needs. Give it a try?