This has nothing to do with smoking, drinking, or running around with someone you’re not married to; it’s about squeezing the heck out of wood.
And that’s what a vise is for, at least a heavy-duty model like the one in this story from the Lost Art Press. In it Don Williams describes searching for a vise that is cool enough to be called Studley-esque. He’s referring to Henry O. Studley, a piano maker who worked in Boston from 1890 to 1920. During that time he built an incredible tool chest and filled it with equally incredible tools. Studley’s tool chest has been immortalized in books and magazine articles, made into a poster by Fine Woodworking, and examined by Norm Abram in the video below. It’s so well-known it has its own Wikipedia page.
I wish Williams luck in his search for Studley-esque vises and other tools.
